Gold Grass

This is a more delicate species than Pogonatherum paniceum, forming a uniform tuft lacking dense bunches of branchlets, with tiny spikelets and strongly bent lemma awns.

This species is used medicinally.

This is a less robust plant than Pogonatherum paniceum with smaller spikelets and longer callus hairs. It grows in tufts along tracks and banks in deep forests and among rocks in rivers and streams, usually in the shade; ascending to 1500 m.

Perennials; culms tufted, erect, 3-6-noded, nodes bearded. Ligule short, ciliated. Inflorescence a single raceme, 1.5-3 cm long; rachis-joints ciliated, about 3/5 as long as the spikelet. Spikelets paired, dimorphic, the pedicellate spikelet smaller than the sessile one, both with 2 long awns of about 1.5-2.5 mm long. Sessile spikelets oblong, about 1.8-2 mm long; glumes papery; lower glume truncate, fringed, about 1.8 mm long, 2-nerved, awnless; upper glume with a longer awn, 1-nerved, as long as the lower, or slightly longer; lemma membranous; lower lemma oblong-lanceolate, nerves obscure, about 1.2 mm long, 2-cleft, awnless, palea wanting; upper lemma as long as the lower, with a long awn; upper palea membranous, filiform, about 1-1.8 mm long; stamen 1.

Culms erect or geniculate, sometimes trailing, very slender, 10–30 cm tall, 0.5–0.8 mm in diam., branching from near base. Leaf sheaths glabrous or puberulous, mouth long ciliate; leaf blades 1.5–5 × 0.1–0.4 cm, scaberulous-puberulous, apex acute. Raceme 1.5–3 cm (excluding awns), yellowish; rachis internodes and pedicels 1/3–2/3 spikelet length, hairs silky white. Sessile spikelet 1.3–2 mm, membranous; callus hairs equal to or slightly longer than spikelet; lower glume scabrid on back, apex ciliate with ca. 0.2 mm hairs; upper glume awn 1.5–1.8 cm; lower floret absent or only lemma present; awn of upper lemma 1.8–2.4 cm, strongly geniculate near base, column very short, dark brown, limb fine, diverging at right angle or more from spikelet. Stamen 1, anther ca. 1 mm. Pedicelled spikelet similar to sessile but smaller; lower glume awnless. Fl. and fr. May–Sep.

Slender perennial; culms wiry, weak, often trailing, 10-30 cm long. Leaf-blades 1-4 cm long, 1-3 mm wide. Racemes 1-3.cm long, dense, borne upon a flexuous peduncle, bearing numerous long delicate yellow-brown awns. Spikelets narrowly elliptic-oblong, 13-2 mm long, the callus bearded with white hairs 2(-3) mm long; lower glume a little shorter than the spikelet; lower floret reduced to a hyaline lemma or wanting; upper glume and upper lemma bearing slender flexuous awns 8-20 mm long; stamen 1 (rarely 2),

Himalaya, India, Burma, Thailand, Indo-China, China, Japan, Malaysia.

Distributed in India, ascending in the hills to 1,500 m, extending to China, Malaysia and Japan.

Anhui, Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hainan, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangxi, Sichuan, Taiwan, Yunnan, Zhejiang [Bhutan, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Nepal, New Guinea, Pakistan, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam; Australia (Queensland)].

Distribution: Pakistan (Punjab & N.W.F.P.); Afghanistan and India to Japan and the Solomon Islands.

700-1700 m

Mountain slopes, forests, moist places along roadsides and streams; below 2000 m.

Andropogon crinitus Thunb., Fl. Jap, 40. pl. 7. 1784.

Andropogon crinitus Thunberg in Murray, Syst. Veg., ed. 14, 903. 1784; A. monandrus Roxburgh; Homoplitis crinita (Thunberg) Trinius; Ischaemum crinitum (Thunberg) Trinius; Pogonatherum saccharoideum P. Beauvois var. crinitum (Thunberg) F. N. Williams; P. saccharoideum var. monandrum (Roxburgh) Hackel.