| Home | > | List of families | > | Poaceae | > | Eragrostis | > | paradoxa |
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| Description: |
Caespitose perennial without rhizomes or stolons; culms up to 40 cm tall, erect, unbranched, glabrous at the nodes, eglandular; basal leaf sheaths glabrous, chartaceous, terete, eglandular, decaying into a cushion of persistent fibres; ligule a line of hairs; leaf laminas 3–12 cm × 0.5–1 mm, tightly convolute, filiform and flexuous, glabrous, eglandular.Panicle 2.5–9 cm long, ovate or broadly ovate, loose and open with widely divaricate branchlets and pedicels, the spikelets evenly distributed on slender pedicels 2.5–12 mm long, the primary branches not in whorls, terminating in a fertile spikelet, the branches, branchlets and pedicels pubescent or thinly long-pilose on a conspicuous swelling in the axils, sometimes glabrous, eglandular.Spikelets 5.5–8.5 × 3–5 mm, lanceolate-oblong to ovate, rarely oblong, conspicuously tapering to the apex, laterally compressed, 7–11(20)-flowered, the florets disarticulating from below upwards, the rhachilla persistent; glumes subequal, 2.5–3.3 mm long, reaching to 3/4 the way along the adjacent lemmas, keeled, ovate-lanceolate in profile, glabrous, acute at the apex; lemmas 3–3.3 mm long, keeled, elliptic in profile, thinly membranous with distinct lateral nerves, diverging from the rhachilla at nearly 45°, those in opposite rows scarcely imbricate, the rhachilla ± visible between them, greyish-green, glabrous, obtuse or sometimes retuse at the apex; palea deciduous after the lemma (sometimes tardily so), glabrous on the flanks, the keels slender, wingless, smooth or scaberulous; anthers 3, 1.2–1.8 mm long.Caryopsis 1–1.3 mm long, oblong or elliptic, dorsally flattened and sometimes sulcate. |
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| Habitat: | Rocky outcrops, riverine fringes and montane grassland, in waterslicks and wet hollows amongst rocks, and in wet dambos |
| Altitude range: | 1220 - 2480 m |
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| Worldwide distribution: | Known only from Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe |
| Zambian distribution (Flora Zambesiaca): | N,W,E |
| Zambian distribution (Provinces): | Nw,N,Mc |
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| Spot characters: | Display spot characters for this species |
| Literature: |
Burrows, J.E. & Willis, C.K. (eds) (2005). Plants of the Nyika Plateau Southern African Botanical Diversity Network Report No. 31 SABONET, Pretoria Page 346. Chapano, C. & Mugarisanwa, N.H. (2003). Plants of the Matobo District National Herbarium and Botanic Garden, Zimbabwe Page 15. Cope, T.A. (1999). Poaceae Flora Zambesiaca 10(2) Page 61. (Includes a picture). Mapaura, A. & Timberlake, J. (eds) (2004). A checklist of Zimbabwean vascular plants Southern African Botanical Diversity Network Report No. 33 Sabonet, Pretoria and Harare Page 104. Poilecot, P. (2007). Eragrostis species of Zimbabwe Éditions Quae,Versailles, France Pages 48 - 49. (Includes a picture). |
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