Source:
SSA
Description:
Perennial, tufted, prickly, woody. Leaf blade flat or rolled, hard and woody, pungent; ligule a fringe of hairs. Inflorescence a panicle with a stout central axis usually ending in spines and without spikelets, bearing short dorsal primary laterals, laterals secondarily branched and condensed into clusters appressed to central axis or forming simple spreading racemes; spikelets solitary, shortly pedicelled. Spikelet laterally compressed, disarticulating above glumes and tardily between florets; glumes +/- equal, shorter than spikelet, similar, 3-nerved, awnless. Florets 3-20, bisexual; uppermost floret reduced; lemma similar in texture to glumes, entire, 3-nerved, rounded, usually glabrous or with short hairs, awnless; palea similar in texture to lemma. Lodicules 2, fleshy. Stamens 3. Ovary glabrous. Caryopsis narrowly oblong with free pericarp. x= 10.
Distribution:
Species 2, sthn Afr., Namibia and mainly western regions of Northern and Western Cape.
Classification:
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