Mesosetum

  • Authority

    Swallen, Jason R. 1937. The Grass Genus Mesosetum. Brittonia. 4: 363-392.

  • Family

    Poaceae

  • Scientific Name

    Mesosetum

  • Description

    Genus Description - Racenie solitary, the rachis slender, sometimes broadly winged; spikelets solitary, usually conspicuously hairy, sessile or shortly pedicelled in two rows on one side of the rachis, the first glume turned toward the rachis, hence the back of the fruit turned away from the rachis; first glume more than two-thirds as long as the spikelet, 3- or obscurely 5-nerved, awnless, or in the section Bifaria awned from between the teeth of a minutely toothed apex; second glume 3-7-nerved, equal to or slightly exceeding the fruLit (shorter than the fruit in the section Loliiformnia); lower floret usually sterile, sometimes with a well- developed palea and in some species with a staminate flower, the lemma 5-nerved, exceeding the fruit; fruit usually ventricose on the palea side, the back usually straight, ovoid or obovate, acute, usually minutely striate (smooth and shining in MI. pappophorunt)3 the margins of the lemma flat but rather tightly enclosing the palea; stamens 3; styles 2, plumose. Slender aninual or perennial grasses, often stoloniferous, with solitary one-sided spikelike racemes.

  • Discussion

    Panicum ? Loliacea Nees, Agrost. Bras. 102. 1829.

    Panicum , Diplaria Benth. & Hook. Gen. PI. 3: 1101. 1883.

    Panicum n Bifaria Hack. Oesterr. Bot. Zeits. 47: 76. 1897. Bifaria Kuntze, Rev. Gen. Pl. 32: 359. 1898.

    Peniculus Swalleni, Am. Journ. Bot. 19: 581. f. 1. 1932.