Class
Order
Family
Classification
Subordinate Taxa
Nomenclature
Scientific Name:
Cortaderia Stapf, Gard. Chron., ser. 3, 22: 22 (1897)
Vernacular Name(s):
Pampas grass
Description
Tall perennial tussocks with robust intravaginal shoots (extravaginal in C. splendens). Leaf-sheaths heavily coated in epicuticular wax or not, breaking into short segments or remaining entire. Ligule a rim of short hairs. Leaf-blade to 2 m long, tapering, 1-many evident ribs, scabrid and sharply cutting from many antrorse prickle-teeth or scarcely so, homo- or heterochromous. Panicle large, plumose, variously coloured subtended by long, hair-fringed bract, branches stiff to flexible. Glumes 1-nerved, transparent, minutely prickle-toothed. Spikelets with 3–7 florets. Flowers dimorphic on separate plants, ☿ and ♀, gynodioecious. Lemma 3-nerved, hairs abundant and radiating (except on ☿) awned from between bifid lobes or entire and mucronate. Lodicules 2, cuneate and irregularly lobed, hair-tipped. Androecium of male-fertile flowers with 3 long anthers, of male-sterile flowers reduced to small staminodes or shorter sterile anthers. Gynoecium with 2 plumose stigmas (and the remnant of a third), ♀ > ☿. Caryopsis free; hilum linear c. ½ caryopsis. Fig. 17.
[From: Edgar and Connor (2000) Flora of New Zealand. Volume 5 (second printing).]
Biostatus
Exotic
| Category | Number |
|---|---|
| Exotic: Fully Naturalised | 2 |
| Total | 2 |
Bibliography
Edgar, E.; Connor, H.E. 2010: Flora of New Zealand Volume V Grasses. Edition 2. Manaaki Whenua Press.
Mabberley, D.J. 2008: Mabberley's plant book, a portable dictionary of plants, their classification and uses. Edition 3. Cambridge University Press.
Stapf, O. 1897: The botanical history of the uva, pampas grass and their allies. Gardeners' Chronicle, ser. 3, 22: 358,–378, 396.
