Manual of the New Zealand Flora.

Division A. PanicacÆ

Division A. PanicacÆ.

Spikelets articulated on their pedicels below the glumes and falling away at maturity; usually 2-flowered, the upper flower perfect and producing seed, the lower flower always male; rhachilla not continued beyond the upper flower.

Tribe 1. AndropogoneÆ.

Spikelets usually 1-flowered, generally in pairs, rarely in threes or solitary, on the rhachis of a spike or branches of a panicle, all hermaphrodite or some of them male, in the latter case so placed that a male spikelet stands by the side of a hermaphrodite one. Flowering glumes hyaline, often awned, usually much smaller than the empty ones.
Panicle long, dense, cylindrical. Spikelets awnless, almost concealed by long silky hairs 1. Imperata.

Tribe II. Zoysieæ.

Spikelets usually 1-flowered, solitary or in clusters on the rhachis of a spike or raceme. Flowering glumes membranous, never awned, usually smaller than the outer glumes.

Small creeping usually maritime grass. Leaves short, rigid. Spike short, stiff. Spikelets appressed to the rhachis 2. Zoysia.

Tribe III. Paniceæ.

Spikelets with 1 terminal hermaphrodite flower with or without a male one below it. Flowering glumes awnless, cartilaginous or coriaceous, in fruit hardened and enclosing the grain. Outer glumes thinner in texture than the flowering glumes, rarely awned.
Spikelets 1-flowered, plano-convex, sessile in 2 or 4 rows in one-sided spikes which are either in pairs or form the branches of a simple panicle. Empty glumes 2 3. Paspalum.
Spikelets with 2 hermaphrodite flowers, panicled; outer glumes 2, persistent after the rest of the spikelet has fallen away 4. Isachne.
Spikelets with 1 hermaphrodite flower and sometimes a male flower below; outer glumes 2 or 3, not awned, the lowest often very small 5. Panicum.
Stems weak, decumbent; leaves broad, ovate to lanceolate. Spikelets as in Panicum, but outer glumes awned 6. Oplismenus.
Spikelets enclosed, each one or 2–3 together, in an involucre of rigid spines or bristles, often connate into a cup below 7. Cenchrus.
Stout wide-creeping sand-plant. Inflorescence diæcious; males in spikes clustered in heads; females in dense globular heads with long radiating pungent-pointed bracts 8. Spinifex.