| # The grass genera of the world |

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

### Hitchcockella A. Camus

Named for A.S. Hitchcock, American agrostologist.

Habit, vegetative morphology. Perennial (shrub). The flowering culms leafy. Culms woody and persistent (slender); not scandent (?); branched above. Primary branches 3–10. The branching suffrutescent (the fascicles more or less curved). Culm leaf sheaths present. Rhizomes leptomorph. Leaves not basally aggregated. Leaf blades lanceolate to elliptic (acuminate and mucronate); narrow; rounded at the base; pseudopetiolate (one supposes); without cross venation (apparently); disarticulating from the sheaths. Ligule present (‘nearly none’). Contra-ligule absent.

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

Inflorescence. Inflorescence determinate; of 1–3 spikelets at the apices of branchlets and rather hidden by leaves; spatheate; a complex of ‘partial inflorescences’ and intervening foliar organs (presumably). Spikelet-bearing axes presumably very much reduced. Spikelets solitary; not secund; not in distinct ‘long-and-short’ combinations.

Female-fertile spikelets. Spikelets 12 mm long; lanceolate; strongly compressed laterally; disarticulating above the glumes (the assumed proximal lemma(s) falling with the floret); not disarticulating between the florets. Rachilla terminated by a female-fertile floret (?).

Glumes two, or several (?-with abundant scope for confusing glumes and proximal sterile lemmas, at least in the available description); shorter than the adjacent lemmas; (G2) hairy; pointed; carinate; similar (lanceolate, acuminate, subulate). Lower glume 7 nerved. Upper glume 7–9 nerved. Spikelets with incomplete florets (probably?). The incomplete florets (if to be interpreted as such) proximal to the female-fertile florets. Spikelets with proximal incomplete florets (?). The proximal incomplete florets 1; sterile. The proximal lemmas lemma-like - subulate, compressed, keeled, hairy; 13 nerved; exceeded by the female-fertile lemmas; similar in texture to the female-fertile lemmas.

Female-fertile florets 1. Lemmas acuminate; incised (obscurely bidenticulate); awnless; hairy (ciliate); carinate. Palea present. Stamens 6. Ovary apically glabrous (rostrate); without a conspicuous apical appendage. Styles fused (into one long style). Stigmas 2.

Classification. Watson & Dallwitz (1994): Bambusoideae; Bambusodae; Bambuseae. Soreng et al. (2015): Bambusoideae; Bambusodae; Bambuseae; Hickeliinae. 1 species (H. baronii).

Distribution, phytogeography, ecology. Madagascar.

References, etc. Morphological/taxonomic: Camus 1925a.

Special comments. From the original, very inadequate description. Fruit data wanting. 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’.

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