Anemanthele Veldk.
From the Greek anemos (wind) and anthele (plume) - ‘New Zealand Wind Grass’.
Sometimes referred to Stipa
Habit, vegetative morphology. Perennial; densely caespitose (from a short, cataphyllous rhizome). Culms 70–150 cm high; herbaceous; unbranched above. Culm nodes glabrous. Young shoots intravaginal. Leaves mostly basal; non-auriculate. Leaf blades narrow (up to 8 mm wide, to 40 cm long, stiff); flat, or rolled (flat to involute); without cross venation; persistent; an unfringed membrane; truncate; 1–1.5 mm long.
Reproductive organization. Plants bisexual, with bisexual spikelets; with hermaphrodite florets.
Inflorescence. Inflorescence paniculate; open (large, lax, the branches in verticils of 5 to 8); with capillary branchlets; espatheate; not comprising ‘partial inflorescences’ and foliar organs. Spikelet-bearing axes persistent. Spikelets not secund; pedicellate.
Female-fertile spikelets. Spikelets 2.75–3.5 mm long; greenish purple to leaden; compressed laterally to not noticeably compressed; disarticulating above the glumes. Rachilla terminated by a female-fertile floret. Hairy callus present (small). Callus short (0.15–0.2 mm); blunt (obtuse, conical, straight).
Glumes two; very unequal to more or less equal (G1 2.5–3 mm, G2 2.75–3.5 mm); exceeding the spikelets; (the upper) long relative to the adjacent lemmas; hairless; glabrous (apart from the scabrous midrib); pointed (or the G2 apically erose); awnless (G2 with the midrib slightly excurrent); carinate; similar (scarious). Lower glume 1 nerved. Upper glume 1 nerved, or 3 nerved. Spikelets with female-fertile florets only; without proximal incomplete florets.
Female-fertile florets 1. Lemmas convolute to not convolute (hiding the upper part of the palea); decidedly firmer than the glumes (‘persistently membranous’); not becoming indurated; incised; 2 lobed; not deeply cleft (minutely bilobed at the tip); awned. Awns 1; median; from a sinus (i.e., from between the minute lobes); non-geniculate; straight, or flexuous; entered by several veins (by all three); deciduous. Lemmas hairless; glabrous (to scaberulous); non-carinate (?); having the margins lying flat on the palea; 3 nerved; with the nerves confluent towards the tip. Palea present (only its upper part covered, at anthesis, by the overlapping upper margins of the lemma); relatively long to conspicuous but relatively short (1.5–1.6 mm, compared with the 2–2.25 mm lemma); apically erose to slightly fimbriate; awnless, without apical setae; 2-nerved (weakly so); keel-less (neither keeled nor furrowed). Lodicules present; 2; free (but closely set and imbricate); membranous; glabrous; not toothed (lanceolate lingular); not or scarcely vascularized. Stamens 1. Anthers about 1 mm long (yellow); not penicillate. Ovary glabrous. Styles free to their bases. Stigmas 2.
Fruit, embryo and seedling. Fruit free from both lemma and palea (exposed between the divergent lemma and palea); small (about 1.5 mm long, brown); fusiform; smooth (finely reticulate). Hilum short (in the lower 1/6 of the grain, elliptic). Embryo large to small (about 0.3 times the grain length); with an epiblast; without a scutellar tail (the primary root bent away from the main axis); with a negligible mesocotyl internode. Embryonic leaf margins meeting.
Abaxial leaf blade epidermis. Costal/intercostal zonation lacking. Papillae absent. Microhairs absent. Stomata absent or very rare. Intercostal short-cells common; in cork/silica-cell pairs. Costal short-cells predominantly paired (with a few threes). Costal silica bodies horizontally-elongated smooth to rounded (more or less circular, irregularly isodiametric, oval to slightly elongated, and irregular).
Transverse section of leaf blade, physiology. C3; XyMS+. Mesophyll with non-radiate chlorenchyma. Leaf blade with distinct, prominent adaxial ribs; with the ribs very irregular in sizes (of two size orders). Midrib conspicuous; with one bundle only. Bulliforms present in discrete, regular adaxial groups (lining the adaxial grooves). All the vascular bundles accompanied by sclerenchyma. Combined sclerenchyma girders present; forming ‘figures’ (the major bundles with T’s).
Taxonomy. Stipoideae; Stipeae.
Distribution, ecology, phytogeography. 1 species; New Zealand. Mesophytic (at the edges of streamlets, up to 460 m).
Antarctic. New Zealand.
References, etc. Morphological/taxonomic: Veldkamp 1985. Leaf anatomical: this project.
Cite this publication as: Watson, L., and Dallwitz, M. J. (1992 onwards). ‘Grass Genera of the World: Descriptions, Illustrations, Identification, and Information Retrieval; including Synonyms, Morphology, Anatomy, Physiology, Phytochemistry, Cytology, Classification, Pathogens, World and Local Distribution, and References.’ http://biodiversity.uno.edu/delta/. Version: 18th August 1999. Dallwitz (1980), Dallwitz, Paine and Zurcher (1993 onwards, 1998), and Watson and Dallwitz (1994), and Watson, Dallwitz, and Johnston (1986) should also be cited (see References).