Flora of North America species comparison

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Coelorachis

jointtail grass
Habit Plants perennial; cespitose or rhizomatous.
Culms

60-400 cm, erect.
Leaves

not aromatic;

basal and cauline;

sheaths open, glabrous, margins scarious;

auricles lacking;

ligules membranous, ciliate;

blades flat to conduplicate, glabrous or sparsely pubescent, margins scarious, sometimes scabrous.
Inflorescences

terminal and axillary, composed of a solitary, pedunculate rame;

rames stout;

disarticulation in the rames, below the sessile spikelets.
Spikelets

dorsally compressed, in heterogamous sessile-pedicellate pairs.
Caryopses

ellipsoid to broadly ellipsoid, yellow.
Pedicels

short, thick, appressed or partly fused to the side of the rame axes.
Sessile

spikelets embedded in the rame axes, ovate, with 2 florets, unawned;

lower glumes indurate, smooth, rugose, or pitted, 7-11-veined, not keeled;

upper glumes coriaceous, keeled, 1-veined;

lower florets sterile;

upper florets bisexual, unawned;

anthers 3.
Pedicellate

spikelets 1-3 mm, usually reduced.
x

= 9.

Coelorachis
Distribution
from FNA
AL; AR; DE; FL; GA; KS; LA; MD; MO; MS; NC; NJ; OK; SC; TX; VA
[BONAP county map]
Discussion

Coelorachis is a tropical genus of approximately 20 species; four are native to the southeastern United States. Most species tend to favor damp soils. Veldkamp et al. (1986) recommended combining Coelorachis and Hackelochloa with some other small genera in Mnesithea Kunth, but these two seem to be sufficiently distinct to be maintained until more data are available.

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Key
1. Culms and sheaths terete; lower glumes of the sessile spikelets with circular pits on the sides, the central region initially smooth, usually developing rectangular pits at maturity, occasionally remaining smooth
C. cylindrica
1. Culms and sheaths compressed-keeled; lower glumes of the sessile spikelets transversely rugose, rectangular-pitted, or smooth.
→ 2
2. Lower glumes of the sessile spikelets rectangular-pitted
C. tessellata
2. Lower glumes of the sessile spikelets transversely rugose or smooth.
→ 3
3. Lower glumes of the sessile spikelets distinctly transversely rugose; rachises distinctly indented below the sessile spikelets
C. rugosa
3. Lower glumes of the sessile spikelets smooth to slightly transversely rugose; rachises not, or only slightly, indented below the sessile spikelets
C. tuberculosa
Source FNA vol. 25, p. 687. Author: Charles M. Allen;.
Parent taxa Poaceae > subfam. Panicoideae > tribe Andropogoneae
Subordinate taxa
C. cylindrica, C. rugosa, C. tessellata, C. tuberculosa
Name authority Brongn.
Web links 
Unless otherwise noted, all data comes from the online version of the Flora of North America, who have made most of their content available via a Creative Commons license (CC BY 4.0).



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