Leptochloa

• Authority

  Acevedo-Rodríguez, Pedro & collaborators. 1996. Flora of St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands. Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 78: 1-581.

• Family

  Poaceae

• Scientific Name

  Leptochloa

• Description

  Genus Description - Cespitose annual or perennial herbs; culms erect or decumbent. Leaf sheaths glabrous or hairy; ligules membranous to ciliate; blades mostly flat, occasionally involute. Inflorescence of many racemose primary branches along an elongate, scabrous, triquetrous central axis. Spikelets mostly 3-10-flowered, laterally compressed or terete, subsessile or pedicellate; glumes shorter than the spikelets, unequal, glabrous; lower glume 1-nerved; upper glume 1-3-nerved; spikelets in 2 rows along the rachis, disarticulating above the glumes, with the lemma and palea falling as a unit; lemma 3-nerved, unawned or awned, hairy or glabrous; palea shorter than the lemma, glabrous; stamens 2 or 3. Caryopsis dorsiventrally compressed or laterally compressed.