Schizachyrium

• 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

  Schizachyrium

• Description

  Genus Description - Annual or perennial herbs; culms erect or decumbent. Leaf sheaths hairy; ligules membranous, with a fringe near apex; blades flat. Inflorescence a single raceme enclosed in a bractlike sheath, usually several per culm. Spikelets several to many pairs, falling attached to the more or less thickened adjacent rachis intemode; rachis intemode narrow at base and thickened near the apex, the margins with irregular lobes; rachis ending in a triad of 1 sessile and 2 pedicellate spikelets. Sessile spikelets bisexual; glumes subequal, concealing the florets; lower glume membranous, dorsally compressed, flat to strongly convex, entire to bidentate, 2- to many-nerved, marginal nerves more conspicuous than the midvein, the margins enfolding the upper glume and florets; upper glume membranous to hyaline, 1- or 3-nerved, keeled; lower floret sterile, represented by a hyaline lemma, lacking a palea; upper floret fertile, bisexual, the lemma hyaline, bilobed, usually awned, the awn arising from between the lobes, geniculate below, sharply bent after emerging from the spikelet, the palea absent. Pedicellate spikelets sterile, similar to sessile spikelets or reduced. Caryopsis with a large embryo.