Culms rounded to compressed below, with aerial nodes
Leaves basal and cauline, ligulate, distichous, deciduous, slender; sheaths split or tubular (cauline leaves), apex V-shaped; blade setaceous, without keeled midrib; profile V-shaped or crescentiform
Inflorescence paniculate
Spikelets of several, obscurely distichous glumes, mostly bearing florets of both sexes separately; lowest 1 or 2 glumes empty, next with female floret and uppermost 1 or 2 with male florets or empty
Perianth of 3 plumose scales
Stamens (1)3
Style linear, 3-angled and broadened into a hollow beak (formed by separation of pericarp) on ovary, 3-branched
Nutlet pale, green or brown, ovoid, triangular, beaked
Nomenclature:
Coleochloa Gilly
Gilly: 12 (1943)
Nelmes: 374 (1954)
Compton: 73 (1976)
Forbes: 39 (1987)
Eriospora Hochst. ex A.Rich.
Richard: 508 (1851) not of Berk. & Broome
Clarke: 297 (1898)
Clarke: 511 (1902)
Schonland: 65 (1922)
Distribution & Notes:
Global: Species ± 7, Africa and Madagascar
Southern Africa: Species 2, occurring in Northern Province, North-West, Gauteng, Mpumalanga, KwaZulu-Natal and Swaziland
References:
CLARKE, C.B. 1898. Cyperaceae. Flora capensis 7
CLARKE, C.B. 1902. Cyperaceae. Flora of tropical Africa 8
COMPTON, R.H. 1976. Cyperaceae. Flora of Swaziland. Journal of South African Botany Suppl. Vol. 11
FORBES, P.L. 1987. Cyperaceae. In T.K. Lowrey & S. Wright, The Flora of the Witwatersrand Vol. 1: The Monocotyledonae. Witwatersrand University Press, Johannesburg
GILLY, C.L. 1943. An Afro-South American cyperaceous complex. Brittonia 5
NELMES, E. 1954. Notes on Cyperaceae. The African genus Coleochloa. Kew Bulletin 1953
RICHARD, A. 1851. Tentamen Florae Abyssinicae 2. A. Bertrand, Paris
SCHONLAND, S. 1922. Introduction to South African Cyperaceae. Memoirs of the Botanical Survey of South Africa No. 3
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Welcome to Biodiversity Advisor 2.0!
Biodiversity Advisor, developed by the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI) and its Data Partners, is a system that will provide integrated biodiversity information to a wide range of users who will have access to geospatial data, plant and animal species distribution data, ecosystem-level data, literature, images and metadata.
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