Description: Tufted annuals or perennials, often aquatic, culms erect or geniculately ascending, branched, nodes often tuberculate.
Leaves with ligule a ciliate rim; blade mostly on the culm, firm.
Inflorescence a stiff open panicle, branches fine, with spikelets towards the end.
Spikelets on slender pedicels, globose, solitary. Rachilla disarticulating below the glumes and, eventually, between the florets. Florets 2, the upper female or bisexual, the lower male. Glumes similar, about as long as the spikelet, rounded on the back and at the tips, the lower 5-nerved, the upper 7-nerved. Lemmas similar, obtuse, obscurely 5–7-nerved, the lower slightly longer than the upper. Paleas 2, similar to the lemmas, 2-nerved, flat on the back between the keels.
Distribution and occurrence: World: c. 50 species, warm regions, most species in tropical Asia. Australia: 3 species (native), N.S.W., Qld, Vic., N.T.
Text by S. W. L. Jacobs & S. M. Hastings
Taxon concept:
| One species in NSW: Isachne globosa |
|
