- Reference
- Fragm. 8:236 (1874)
- Name Status
- Current
Scientific Description
Family Ecdeiocoleaceae.
Sometimes included in Restionaceae.
Habit and leaf form. Herbs. Switch-plants. Leaves much reduced. Perennial; plants with neither basal nor terminal concentrations of leaves. Young stems cylindrical (grooved, wiry). Rhizomatous. Xerophytic. Leaves alternate; membranous (reduced to scales); sessile; sheathing; simple; epulvinate. Leaf blades entire; parallel-veined; without cross-venules. Vegetative anatomy. Plants with silica bodies (as silica sand, in the culm mesophyll). Leaf anatomy. Leaf blade epidermis without differentiation into ‘long’ and ‘short’ cells. Guard-cells ‘grass type’. Stem anatomy. Secondary thickening absent.
Reproductive type, pollination. Fertile flowers functionally male and functionally female. Unisexual flowers present. Plants monoecious (male and female flowers in the one spikelet). Female flowers with staminodes (three staminodes). Male flowers with pistillodes. Floral nectaries absent (nectaries absent). Anemophilous.
Inflorescence and flower features. Flowers aggregated in ‘inflorescences’; in spikes; in ‘spikelets’. The terminal inflorescence unit racemose. Inflorescences terminal; small, solitary, terminal spikes - constituting spikelets.