e-Key<span id="jodit_selection_marker_1707819370822_4384124059068608" data-jodit_selection_marker="start" style="line-height: 0; display: none;"></span> v3 - Coelac<span id="jodit_selection_marker_1707819370822_17934805725100844" data-jodit_selection_marker="end" style="line-height: 0; display: none;"></span>hyrum
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Interactive keys to the identification of seed plants of southern Africa using keys based on plant morphology.

Poaceae - Chloridoideae - Eragrostideae - Eleusininae - Coelachyrum Hochst. & Nees

Description:

  • Perennial, tufted
  • Leaf blade linear, usually expanded; ligule a fringed membrane
  • Inflorescence usually of open or dense, spike-like racemes along a central axis; spikelets solitary, shortly pedicelled
  • Spikelet laterally compressed, disarticulating above glumes and between florets; glumes ± equal to unequal, lanceolate, shorter than spikelet, membranous, rounded or lightly keeled on back, 1(3)-nerved
  • Florets 7-12, bisexual; uppermost floret sometimes male only; lemma saccate below, lightly keeled above middle, rounded on back in lower half, 3-nerved, hairy with club-shaped hairs on lower back, or glabrous, awnless; callus 0; palea shorter than lemma, glabrous or with club-shaped hairs on lower half
  • Lodicules 2, fleshy, glabrous
  • Stamens 3
  • Ovary glabrous
  • Caryopsis broadly ellipsoid, strongly flattened; pericarp free

Nomenclature:

  • Coelachyrum Hochst. & Nees
    • Hochstetter & Nees ab Esenbeck: 221 (1842)
    • Chippindall: 121 (1955)
    • Phillips: 159 (1982)
    • Clayton & Renvoize: 220 (1986)
    • Gibbs Russell et al.: 87 (1990)
    • Watson & Dallwitz: 254 (1994)
  • Cypholepis Chiov.
    • Chiovenda: 357 (1908)
    • Phillips: 248 (1974)
    • Watson & Dallwitz: 286 (1994)

Distribution & Notes:

  • Global: Species 1-8, Africa, Arabian Peninsula and Pakistan
  • Southern Africa: Species 1: Coelachyrum yemenicum (Schweinf.) S.M.Phillips, Namibia, Botswana, Northern Province, North-West and eastern regions of Northern Cape

References:

  • CHIOVENDA, E. 1908. Cypholepis. Annuario Reale del Istituto Botanico di Roma 8
  • CHIPPINDALL, L.K.A. 1955. A guide to the identification of grasses in South Africa. In D. Meredith, The grasses and pastures of South Africa. Central News Agency, Cape Town
  • CLAYTON, W.D. & RENVOIZE S.A. 1986. Genera graminum. Grasses of the world. Kew Bulletin. Additional series 13
  • GIBBS RUSSELL, G.E., WATSON, L., KOEKEMOER, M., SMOOK, L., BARKER, N.P., ANDERSON, H.M. & DALLWITZ. M.J. 1990. Grasses of southern Africa. Memoirs of the Botanical Survey of South Africa No. 58
  • HOCHSTETTER, C.F.F. & NEES AB ESENBECK, C.G.D. 1842. Coelachyrum. Linnaea 16
  • PHILLIPS, S.M. 1974. Flora of tropical East Africa. Gramineae (Part 2)
  • PHILLIPS, S.M. 1982. Numerical analysis of Eragrostideae. Kew Bulletin 37
  • WATSON, L. & DALLWITZ, M.J. 1994. The grass genera of the world, revised edn. 286. CAB International, Oxon