Imperata 白茅屬
型態特徵
Perennials. Rhizome with long creeping, branched, scaly with a few long internodes. Basal leaves vigorous, sheaths coriaceous, finally disintegrating into fibers; ligule short; blades erect, linear-lanceolate, gradually attenuate downwards, sometimes reduced to a stout midrib, upwards gradually tapering into an acute, usually hard, sharp point, older blades hard with serrate, silicous edges. lnflorescence a silky panicle with inarticulate axis, branched on all sides, dense, contracted, spike-like during anthesis, afterwards more spreading but still narrow, silvery white, creamy or light-yellow. Spikelets in unequally pedicelate pairs, articulate with wide, excavated apex of pedicels, oblong, muticous, at base with dense crown of glossy white hairs, hairs much longer than spikelet, at first erect, afterwards spreading, glumes subequal, thin, 3-9-nerved, rarely nerveless, long-hairy in lower half; lemma smaller, hyaline, very thin, except at base, 1-nerved or nerveless; lower palea absent; upper lemma sometimes wanting; upper palea conduplicate, broad, hyaline, nerveless, usually embracing bisexual flower; lodicules wanting; stamens 2 or 1; styles 2, connate at base, stigmas long and narrow, exserted apically. Caryopsis oblong, free; embryo 1/2 as long as caryopsis of longer.
About ten species in tropics and subtropics; one species in Taiwan.
