| # The grass genera of the world |

L. Watson, T.D. Macfarlane, and M.J. Dallwitz

### Hickelia A. Camus

Excluding Pseudocoix

Habit, vegetative morphology. Perennial. The flowering culms leafy. Culms woody and persistent (slender); scandent; branched above. Buds from which the primary culm branches arise 1. Primary branches 11–20. The branching dendroid. Culm leaf sheaths present. Culm leaves with conspicuous blades. Culm leaf blades lanceolate. Leaves not basally aggregated; without auricular setae. Leaf blades lanceolate (acuminate); broad; to 10–15 mm wide (to 10 cm long); rounded at the base; pseudopetiolate; disarticulating from the sheaths (presumably). Ligule present; small. Contra-ligule absent.

Reproductive organization. Plants bisexual, all with bisexual spikelets; with hermaphrodite florets.

Inflorescence. Inflorescence determinate; with stellate spikelet clusters around the nodes. Spikelet-bearing axes capitate; clustered (the dense capitula aggregated); persistent.

Female-fertile spikelets. Spikelets 10–18 mm long; ovate; becoming ventricose; disarticulating above the glumes (the glumes persistent). Rachilla prolonged beyond the uppermost female-fertile floret.

Glumes several (3–5); relatively large; hairy (long-pilose); pointed; awnless; very dissimilar (the lower short and membranous, the two upper crustaceous and like the lemma). Spikelets with incomplete florets. The incomplete florets proximal to the female-fertile florets. The proximal incomplete florets 2. The proximal lemmas awnless; more or less equalling the female-fertile lemmas to decidedly exceeding the female-fertile lemmas; similar in texture to the female-fertile lemmas; becoming indurated (shining, ventricose).

Female-fertile florets 1. Lemmas broad, convolute, ovate; decidedly firmer than the glumes; becoming indurated (and inflated); entire; awnless; non-carinate; many-nerved. Palea present; relatively long; not convolute; apically pilose; indurated (shining); several nerved (16–20 nerves); keel-less. Lodicules present (‘acute, small’). Stamens 6. Ovary apically hairy; with a conspicuous apical appendage. The appendage broadly conical, fleshy. Stigmas 3.

Fruit, embryo and seedling. Fruit medium sized (9 mm long); longitudinally grooved. Pericarp thin (becoming dilated at the base of the style).

Classification. Watson & Dallwitz (1994): Bambusoideae; Bambusodae; Bambuseae. Soreng et al. (2015): Bambusoideae; Bambusodae; Bambuseae; Hickeliinae. 4 species.

Distribution, phytogeography, ecology. Madagascar.

Glycophytic. Forest.

Special comments. Anatomical data wanting.

We advise against extracting comparative information from the descriptions. This is much more easily achieved using the DELTA data files or the interactive key, which allows access to the character list, illustrations, full and partial descriptions, diagnostic descriptions, differences and similarities between taxa, lists of taxa exhibiting or lacking specified attributes, distributions of character states within any set of taxa, geographical distribution, and classifications. See also Guidelines for using data taken from Web publications.

Cite this publication as: ‘Watson, L., Macfarlane, T.D., and Dallwitz, M.J. 1992 onwards. The 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. Version: 15th June 2025. delta-intkey.com’.

Contents