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COTTEA Kunth
Plants hermaphroditic, caespitose, perennial. Culms erect or ascending or geniculate, pubescent at least below nodes;
internodes solid, terete. Leaves cauline, not conspicuously distichous; sheaths terete, margins open; auricles absent;
ligules a line of hairs or ciliate membrane; blades flat to involute, not pungent, attenuate. Panicles open or narrow
or contracted; primary branches ascending or appressed, terminating in a spikelet. Cleistogamous spikelets develop in
lower sheaths. Spikelets solitary, laterally compressed, awned; pedicellate, pedicels without glands;
disarticulations above glumes; florets 6-10, callus hairy; reduced floret at apex; glumes 7-13-veined, nearly
equal, about as long as first floret, pubescent; lemmas 9-13-veined, chartaceous, apex irregularly cleft, awned; hairy,
veins scabrous; awns 9-13, irregular length (antrorsely barbed); paleas 2-veined, awnless, keels hairy (ciliate).
Stamens 3; anthers yellow. Caryopses oblong to ellipsoidal, dorsiventrally compressed. Base chromosome number x=10.
A monotypic genus of the New World. That is a xerophitic species of open habitats. This species is not
abundant.
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