Clausospicula, a new Australian genus of grasses (Poaceae, Andropogoneae)

Abstract

Clausospicula, a new monotypic genus from the Darwin and Gulf District, Northern Territory, Australia, is described and illustrated. Its diagnostic characters include cleistogamous spikelets, reduced panicles, racemes and spikelets, and pedicelled spikelets which are poorly developed and deciduous, or suppressed. Also, the glumes of the bisexual spikelet are awned and slightly keeled or without keels. A prominent feature is the extension of the peduncle into an appendage to which the callus of the bisexual spikelet is attached.

The epidermis is notable for its distinct costal and intercostal zones, rectangular intercostal long-cells with tessellated, pitted cell walls, stomata inserted beneath the overlapping interstomatals and arranged in definite rows bordering the costal zones, the presence of macrohairs, narrow microhairs 39–46.5 µm long, silica-celllcork-cell pairs with dumbbell-shaped silica bodies costally and butterfly-shaped silica bodies intercostally. The transverse section shows a distinct midrib with the vascular bundles arranged in a conventional arc abaxially and colourless tissue adaxially, and a symmetrically ordered lamina. The primary vascular bundles are accompanied by sclerenchyma as girders abaxially and adaxially; the adaxial epidermis is extensively bulliform and the abaxial epidermis is of bulliform-like cells.