Puelia Franch.
Including Atractocarpa Franch.
Habit, vegetative morphology. Perennial (sometimes with root tubers); rhizomatous. The flowering culms leafless, or leafy (i.e. sometimes with separate fertile and vegetative culms). Culms herbaceous; unbranched above. Culm leaves present. Upper culm leaf blades fully developed. Culm internodes hollow. Rhizomes pachymorph. Plants unarmed. Leaves not basally aggregated; non-auriculate; without auricular setae. Leaf blades ovate-lanceolate; broad; 20–70 mm wide; flat; pseudopetiolate; cross veined; persistent; a fringed membrane. Contra-ligule present.
Reproductive organization. Plants bisexual, with bisexual spikelets; without hermaphrodite florets (the spikelets with proximal male florets and a terminal female).
Inflorescence. Inflorescence narrowly paniculate; contracted; espatheate, or spatheate (in that the branches are sometimes subtended by small bracts); not comprising ‘partial inflorescences’ and foliar organs. Spikelet-bearing axes short ‘racemes’; persistent. Spikelets not secund; pedicellate; imbricate.
Female-fertile spikelets. Spikelets 12–15 mm long; lanceolate to ovate; compressed laterally; disarticulating above the glumes; not disarticulating between the florets (the males falling together with the terminal female); with distinctly elongated rachilla internodes between the florets (having a 1 mm internode beneath the female floret, bearing a fleshy outgrowth embracing the base of the floret). Rachilla terminated by a female-fertile floret (seemingly). Hairy callus absent.
Glumes two; very unequal, or more or less equal; shorter than the adjacent lemmas; ciliate on the margins; pointed (the upper), or not pointed; awnless; carinate; similar. Lower glume much shorter than half length of lowest lemma; 4 nerved, or 5 nerved. Upper glume 7 nerved. Spikelets with incomplete florets. The incomplete florets proximal to the female-fertile florets. Spikelets with proximal incomplete florets. The proximal incomplete florets 3–5; paleate. Palea of the proximal incomplete florets fully developed. The proximal incomplete florets male (the stamens 6, monadelphous, at least sometimes with penicillate anthers). The proximal lemmas lanceolate; awnless; 11 nerved; exceeded by the female-fertile lemmas.
Female-fertile florets 1. Lemmas convolute; decidedly firmer than the glumes; smooth; not becoming indurated (pallid, softly leathery below, becoming cartilaginous towards the apex); entire; blunt; awnless; hairy (except towards the tip); non-carinate (rounded on the back); without a germination flap; 9–11 nerved. Palea present; relatively long; convolute; entire; awnless, without apical setae (apically fringed); thinner than the lemma; not indurated (but cartilaginous towards the apex); several nerved (5 nerved in the material seen); keel-less (abaxially rounded). Palea back hairy. Lodicules present; 3; free; membranous; ciliate; not toothed. Stamens 0. Ovary glabrous; with a conspicuous apical appendage. The appendage broadly conical, fleshy (and very long). Styles fused (into one). Stigmas 2–3; brown.
Fruit, embryo and seedling. Hilum long-linear. Pericarp free. Embryo small.
Abaxial leaf blade epidermis. Costal/intercostal zonation conspicuous. Papillae absent. Long-cells markedly different in shape costally and intercostally (the costals much narrower); of similar wall thickness costally and intercostally (thin walled). Intercostal zones with typical long-cells. Mid-intercostal long-cells rectangular; having markedly sinuous walls (the sinuosity deep, rather irregular). Microhairs seemingly absent (none seen in either of the species examined). Stomata common. Subsidiaries non-papillate; dome-shaped to triangular (the triangles often apically truncated). Guard-cells overlapping to flush with the interstomatals. Intercostal short-cells common; in cork/silica-cell pairs; silicified. Intercostal silica bodies when properly developed crescentic and oryzoid-type. P. ciliata with abundant small microhairs and prickles intercostally. Costal zones with short-cells. Costal short-cells conspicuously in long rows. Costal silica bodies present and well developed; consistently saddle shaped.
Transverse section of leaf blade, physiology. C3; XyMS+. Mesophyll without adaxial palisade; with arm cells; with fusoids. The fusoids external to the PBS. Leaf blade adaxially flat. Midrib conspicuous; having complex vascularization (with an abaxial arc of three (a large median with small laterals) embedded in sclerenchyma, and a small adaxial sclerenchyma mass containing 1–3 small bundles); with colourless mesophyll adaxially. The lamina symmetrical on either side of the midrib. Bulliforms present in discrete, regular adaxial groups; in simple fans (these large and wide). All the vascular bundles accompanied by sclerenchyma. Combined sclerenchyma girders present (with all the bundles); forming ‘figures’ (I’s and ‘anchors’). Sclerenchyma all associated with vascular bundles.
Cytology. Chromosome base number, x = 12. 2n = 24. 2 ploid.
Taxonomy. Bambusoideae; Bambusodae; Puelieae.
Distribution, ecology, phytogeography. 6 species; tropical Africa. Shade species.
Paleotropical. African. Sudano-Angolan and West African Rainforest. South Tropical African.
References, etc. Leaf anatomical: Metcalfe 1960; 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).