Capillipedium Stapf
From the Latin capillus and pes, pedis (foot), alluding to spikelets borne on capillary panicle branches.
Including Filipedium Raiz. & Jain
Habit, vegetative morphology. Annual, or perennial; caespitose to decumbent. Culms herbaceous; branched above, or unbranched above. Culm nodes hairy, or glabrous. Culm internodes solid. The shoots aromatic, or not aromatic. Leaves not basally aggregated; non-auriculate. Leaf blades narrow; flat; without cross venation; persistent; rolled in bud; an unfringed membrane to a fringed membrane. Contra-ligule absent.
Reproductive organization. Plants bisexual, with bisexual spikelets; with hermaphrodite florets. The spikelets of sexually distinct forms on the same plant; hermaphrodite and male-only, or hermaphrodite and sterile; overtly heteromorphic (the pedicelled spikelets awnless); all in heterogamous combinations. Apomictic, or reproducing sexually.
Inflorescence. Inflorescence paniculate; open; with capillary branchlets; espatheate; not comprising ‘partial inflorescences’ and foliar organs. Spikelet-bearing axes very much reduced, or ‘racemes’; the spikelet-bearing axes with only one spikelet-bearing ‘article’ to with 6–10 spikelet-bearing ‘articles’ (racemes 1–2(-8) jointed); spikelet-bearing axes with very slender rachides (the internodes and pedicels with a translucent median furrow); disarticulating (C. parviflorum may have only one triplet per raceme, the triplet being shed as a unit); falling entire (C. parviflorum), or disarticulating at the joints. The pedicels and rachis internodes with a longitudinal, translucent furrow. ‘Articles’ linear; without a basal callus-knob; densely long-hairy, or somewhat hairy, or glabrous. Spikelets in triplets (C. parviflorum), or paired; secund (pedicellate spikelets on one side of rachis, sessile ones on the other), or not secund (C. parviflorum); sessile and pedicellate; consistently in ‘long-and-short’ combinations; in pedicellate/sessile combinations. Pedicels of the ‘pedicellate’ spikelets free of the rachis. The ‘shorter’ spikelets hermaphrodite. The ‘longer’ spikelets male-only, or sterile.
Female-sterile spikelets. The male spikelets with glumes. The lemmas awnless.
Female-fertile spikelets. Spikelets compressed dorsiventrally; falling with the glumes. Rachilla terminated by a female-fertile floret. Hairy callus present.
Glumes two; more or less equal; long relative to the adjacent lemmas; awnless; very dissimilar. Lower glume two-keeled; convex on the back to concave on the back; not pitted; relatively smooth; 6–11 nerved. Upper glume 3 nerved (naviculate). Spikelets with incomplete florets. The incomplete florets proximal to the female-fertile florets. Spikelets with proximal incomplete florets. The proximal incomplete florets 1; sterile. The proximal lemmas awnless; 0 nerved; similar in texture to the female-fertile lemmas.
Female-fertile florets 1. Lemmas reduced to a hyaline stipe; less firm than the glumes; not becoming indurated; entire; awned. Awns 1; median; apical; geniculate; hairless (glabrous). Lemmas hairless; non-carinate; 1 nerved. Palea absent. Lodicules present; free; fleshy; glabrous. Stamens 3. Anthers not penicillate. Ovary glabrous. Styles free to their bases. Stigmas 2.
Fruit, embryo and seedling. Fruit free from both lemma and palea; small; compressed dorsiventrally. Hilum short. Embryo large. Endosperm containing only simple starch grains. Embryo without an epiblast; with a scutellar tail; with an elongated mesocotyl internode. Embryonic leaf margins overlapping.
Seedling with a long mesocotyl. First seedling leaf with a well-developed lamina. The lamina broad; supine; 13–20 veined.
Abaxial leaf blade epidermis. Costal/intercostal zonation conspicuous. Papillae present; costal and intercostal. Intercostal papillae over-arching the stomata; consisting of one oblique swelling per cell (intercostally), or several per cell (costally). Long-cells similar in shape costally and intercostally; of similar wall thickness costally and intercostally (fairly thin walled). Mid-intercostal long-cells rectangular; having markedly sinuous walls. Microhairs present; panicoid-type. Stomata common, or absent or very rare. Subsidiaries non-papillate; triangular. Guard-cells overlapping to flush with the interstomatals. Intercostal short-cells common; in cork/silica-cell pairs, or not paired (solitary); not silicified (usually). Costal short-cells conspicuously in long rows. Costal silica bodies ‘panicoid-type’.
Transverse section of leaf blade, physiology. C4; XyMS–. Mesophyll with radiate chlorenchyma; traversed by columns of colourless mesophyll cells. Leaf blade adaxially flat. Midrib conspicuous; having a conventional arc of bundles; with colourless mesophyll adaxially. Bulliforms present in discrete, regular adaxial groups (in the furrows); in simple fans and associated with colourless mesophyll cells to form deeply-penetrating fans; associating with colourless mesophyll cells to form arches over small vascular bundles. Many of the smallest vascular bundles unaccompanied by sclerenchyma. Combined sclerenchyma girders present; forming ‘figures’. Sclerenchyma all associated with vascular bundles.
Phytochemistry. Leaves without flavonoid sulphates (1 species).
Cytology. Chromosome base number, x = 10. 2n = 20, 40, and 60. 2, 4, and 6 ploid.
Taxonomy. Panicoideae; Andropogonodae; Andropogoneae; Andropogoninae. Scented-tops.
Distribution, ecology, phytogeography. 14 species; warm Old World. Species of open habitats.
Holarctic, Paleotropical, and Australian. Tethyan. African, Indomalesian, and Neocaledonian. Irano-Turanian. Saharo-Sindian and Sudano-Angolan. Indian, Indo-Chinese, Malesian, and Papuan. North and East Australian. Somalo-Ethiopian and South Tropical African. Tropical North and East Australian.
Hybrids. Intergeneric hybrids with Bothriochloa.
Rusts and smuts. Rusts — Puccinia. Taxonomically wide-ranging species: Puccinia nakanishikii, Puccinia eritraeensis, Puccinia versicolor, Puccinia miyoshiana, and Puccinia cesatii. Smuts from Ustilaginaceae. Ustilaginaceae — Sorosporium and Sphacelotheca.
Economic importance. Significant weed species: C. parviflorum.
References, etc. Leaf anatomical: Metcalfe 1960; this project.
Illustrations. • General aspect. • Transverse section of leaf blade. Capillipedium spicigerum.
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).
