Cutandia Willk.
Named for a Spanish botanist, Vicente Cutanda.
Habit, vegetative morphology. Much-branched annual. Culms 10–40 cm high. Culm nodes glabrous. Culm internodes hollow. Leaves not basally aggregated; non-auriculate. Leaf blades linear; narrow; setaceous, or not setaceous; flat, or rolled (convolute); without cross venation; persistent; an unfringed membrane; truncate; 1.5–5 mm long.
Reproductive organization. Plants bisexual, with bisexual spikelets; with hermaphrodite florets.
Inflorescence. Inflorescence paniculate; open (dichotomously-divaricately branched); with conspicuously divaricate branchlets; espatheate (but panicles partially enclosed by the upper leaf sheaths); not comprising ‘partial inflorescences’ and foliar organs. Spikelet-bearing axes disarticulating, or persistent; falling entire, or disarticulating at the joints (disarticulation occurring variously at the bases of the spikelets, between them, or at bases of branches). Spikelets not secund; pedicellate.
Female-fertile spikelets. Spikelets 5–17 mm long; compressed laterally; disarticulating above the glumes, or falling with the glumes; not disarticulating between the florets (proximally), or disarticulating between the florets (distally). Rachilla prolonged beyond the uppermost female-fertile floret; the rachilla extension with incomplete florets. Hairy callus absent. Callus short.
Glumes two; relatively large; very unequal; shorter than the spikelets; shorter than the adjacent lemmas; pointed, or not pointed; shortly awned, or awnless; carinate; similar (membranous). Lower glume 1–3 nerved. Upper glume 1–5 nerved. Spikelets with incomplete florets. The incomplete florets distal to the female-fertile florets.
Female-fertile florets 2–12. Lemmas similar in texture to the glumes (with hyaline margins); not becoming indurated; incised; usually 2 lobed (emarginate or bifid); awnless, or mucronate, or awned. Awns when present, 1; from a sinus, or dorsal; from near the top; much shorter than the body of the lemma; entered by one vein. Lemmas hairless; non-carinate (3-keeled); 3–5 nerved. Palea present; relatively long; entire (acute to truncate), or apically notched (bifid); awnless, without apical setae; 2-nerved; 2-keeled. Lodicules present; 2; free; membranous; ciliate; toothed. Stamens 3. Anthers 0.5–1.3 mm long; not penicillate. Ovary glabrous. Styles free to their bases. Stigmas 2.
Fruit, embryo and seedling. Fruit free from both lemma and palea; longitudinally grooved; trigonous. Hilum short (elongated, but short). Embryo small. Endosperm liquid in the mature fruit, or hard; without lipid. Embryo with an epiblast; without a scutellar tail; with a negligible mesocotyl internode. Embryonic leaf margins meeting.
Abaxial leaf blade epidermis. Costal/intercostal zonation conspicuous. Papillae absent. Long-cells of similar wall thickness costally and intercostally (very large). Mid-intercostal long-cells fusiform; having straight or only gently undulating walls. Microhairs absent. Stomata common. Subsidiaries parallel-sided. Guard-cells overlapped by the interstomatals. Intercostal short-cells absent or very rare. Costal short-cells neither distinctly grouped into long rows nor predominantly paired. Costal silica bodies horizontally-elongated crenate/sinuous to horizontally-elongated smooth, or ‘panicoid-type’; often dumb-bell shaped.
Transverse section of leaf blade, physiology. C3; XyMS+. Mesophyll with non-radiate chlorenchyma. Leaf blade with distinct, prominent adaxial ribs, or ‘nodular’ in section; with the ribs more or less constant in size. Midrib with one bundle only. Bulliforms not present in discrete, regular adaxial groups (at least, bulliforms/groups inconspicuous in the poor material seen). All the vascular bundles accompanied by sclerenchyma. Combined sclerenchyma girders absent. Sclerenchyma all associated with vascular bundles.
Cytology. Chromosome base number, x = 7. 2n = 14. 2 ploid. Chromosomes ‘large’.
Taxonomy. Pooideae; Poodae; Poeae.
Distribution, ecology, phytogeography. 6 species; Mediterranean, western Asia. Xerophytic; species of open habitats; halophytic, or glycophytic. Mostly in maritime sands or coastal rocky hills.
Holarctic and Paleotropical. Boreal and Tethyan. African. Euro-Siberian. Macaronesian, Mediterranean, and Irano-Turanian. Saharo-Sindian. European.
Rusts and smuts. Rusts — Puccinia. Taxonomically wide-ranging species: Puccinia hordei. Smuts from Ustilaginaceae. Ustilaginaceae — Ustilago.
Economic importance. Important native pasture species: C. memphitica.
References, etc. Morphological/taxonomic: Stace 1978b. Leaf anatomical: this project.
Illustrations. • Inflorescence detail
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).
