Plants annual or perennial; habit various. Culms 20-150 cm, erect, decumbent, or prostrate. Sheaths open; ligules of hairs or membranous and ciliate. Inflorescences terminal, simple pani¬cles or panicles of spikelike primary branches, usually with capillary secondary branches and pedicels; disarticulation below the glumes, sometimes also below the upper florets, the upper florets then falling first. Spikelets with 2 florets. Lower glumes present or absent, 0-1-veined, unawned; upper glumes equaling or exceeding the florets, sometimes gibbous basally, 5-7-veined, emarginate to bilobed, awned or unawned; lower florets staminate or sterile; lower lem¬mas similar to the upper glumes, but not gibbous; upper florets bisexual, laterally compressed; upper lemmas subcoriaceous, glabrous, smooth, unawned; upper paleas resembling the upper lemmas; lodicules 2, fleshy or membranous, x = 9.
Distribution
Puerto Rico, Md., N.Mex., Tex., La., Virgin Islands, Calif., Pacific Islands (Hawaii), Ga., N.C., Ariz., Fla.
Discussion
Melinis is an African and western Asian genus of 22 species that grow in savannahs, open grasslands, and disturbed places. Two species have become established in the Flora region. A third species is now being sold in the Flora region as an ornamental, Melinis nerviglumis (Franchet) Zizka. The cultivar is being marketed as 'Pink Crystal'. In the key, it will key out with M. repens. It differs from that species in having strongly overlapping leaf sheaths, rolled blades, and in usually being perennial.
Rhynchelytrum Nees has traditionally been treated as a separate genus, with the number of veins being the diagnostic character. Zizka (1988) showed that this separation was artificial; consequently the older generic name, Melinis, is now applied to species that used to be included in Rhynchelytrum.
Selected References
Lower Taxa
Key
| 1 | Glumes and pedicels glabrous, scabridulous; lower florets without paleas | Melinis minutiflora |
| 1 | Glumes, and usually the pedicels, with hairs to 7 mm long; lower florets with paleas | > 2 |
| 2 | Leaf sheaths not strongly overlapping, blades not rolled | Melinis repens |
| 2 | Strongly overlapping leaf sheaths, rolled blades, and usually perennial | Melinis nerviglumis |