Diplachne
Tufted perennials. Leaf-blades flat or inrolled; ligules membranous, tapered-elongate, usually becoming lacerated. Inflorescence a slender panicle of several to many usually simple, spike-like branches. Spikelets dorsally compressed, 5–13-flowered, relatively long (>5 mm), breaking up at maturity; glumes 2, 1-nerved, subequal or the lower shorter, membranous, persistent; lemma 3-nerved, membranous, dorsally rounded or flat, truncate or bilobed, the midnerve exserted as a short mucro, nerves often fringed toward the base; palea shorter than lemma. Caryopsis dorsally compressed.
Two species from temperate and tropical Africa, America and Australia, sometimes naturalising outside this area. One species in Australia.
Clayton & Renvoize (1986) relegated the genus to Sect. Diplachne in the predominantly American genus Leptochloa, but Peterson et al. (2012) retrieved five genera from Leptochloa s.l.
Walsh, N.G. (1994). Poaceae. In: Walsh, N.G.; Entwisle, T.J., Flora of Victoria Vol. 2, Ferns and Allied Plants, Conifers and Monocotyledons, pp. 356–627. Inkata Press, Melbourne.
SpinningSynonyms
Clayton W.D., Renvoize S.A. (1986). Genera graminum: grasses of the World.
Peterson, P.M.; Romaschenko, K.; Snow, N.; Johnson, G. (2012). A molecular phylogeny and classification of Leptochloa (Poaceae: Chloridoideae: Chlorideae) sensu lato and related genera. Annals of Botany 109(7): 1317–1330.
