Leaf blade lanceolate to ovate, broad, rounded or abruptly constricted at base, expanded or rolled; ligule a fringed membrane
Inflorescence ± oblong, dense, silky, spike-like, composed of many, crowded, slender, 1-sided racemes appressed to axis; spikelets solitary, sessile or subsessile
Spikelet laterally compressed, disarticulating above glumes and between florets; glumes very unequal, shorter than spikelet, linear, keeled, 1-nerved, acuminate to acute, sometimes mucronate
Florets 5-14; lower florets bisexual; upper floret reduced and sterile; lemmas similar, elliptic-lanceolate, keeled, 3-nerved, nerves conspicuously hairy, truncate or minutely 2-4-lobed, midnerve excurrent into a long slender, straight, scabrid awn; callus hairy; palea linear-lanceolate, shorter than lemma, 2-keeled, hyaline
Lodicules 2, cuneate, glabrous
Stamens 3; anthers minute
Ovary glabrous; styles distinct, slender, plumose
Caryopsis linear
Nomenclature:
Leptocarydion Stapf
Stapf: 316 (1898)
Chippindall: 127 (1955)
Phillips: 294 (1974)
Clayton & Renvoize: 213 (1986)
Gibbs Russell et al.: 197 (1990)
Watson & Dallwitz: 530 (1994)
Distribution & Notes:
Global: Species 1: Leptocarydion vulpiastrum (De Not.) Stapf, eastern and southern Africa
Southern Africa: N Namibia and Botswana, Northern Province, Mpumalanga and KwaZulu-Natal
References:
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
PHILLIPS, S.M. 1974. Flora of tropical East Africa. Gramineae (Part 2)
STAPF, O. 1898-1900. Gramineae. Flora capensis 7
WATSON, L. & DALLWITZ, M.J. 1994. The grass genera of the world, revised edn. CAB International, Oxon
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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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