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SPOROBOLUS R. Br. Dropseed
Plants hermaphroditic, caespitose or stoloniferous or rhizomatous, annual or perennial. Culms erect or ascending or decumbent or
mat forming, glabrous; internodes solid or pithy, terete. Leaves basal or basal and cauline( a few species conspicuously
distichous); sheaths terete or with compressed keels, margins open; auricles absent; ligules a line of hairs or short ciliate
membrane; blades flat or folded or terete or involute, not pungent. Panicles open or contracted; primary branches
spreading or ascending or appressed, terminating in a spikelet. Cleistgamous spikelet in axillary infloresences of some taxa.
Spikelets solitary, terete, awnless, subsessile or pedicellate; pedicels without glands; disarticulation above
glumes; floret 1, callus glabrous; reduced floret absent; glumes 1-veined, unequal, second usually as long as floret,
glabrous or pubescent or hairy; lemmas 1-veined, membranous, entire, awnless, glabrous, veins glabrous.
Stamens 2 or 3; anthers yellow or reddish purple or olivaceous plumbeous. Achene with free pericarp, terete, transluscent.
Base chromosome number x = 9.
A variable genus of about 100 species worldwide in tropical and temperate regions. Recently Baaijens and
Veldkamp (1991) divided subgenus Sporobolus into five sections based on morphology. It is thought to be related
to Calamovilfa and Crypsis.
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