Lloydia Delile [1844, illegitimate homonym not Salisb. ex Rchb. 1830 (syn. of Gagea in Liliaceae)]
Beckeropsis Fig. & De Not.
Eriochaeta Fig. & De Not.
Amphochaeta Andersson
Kikuyuochloa H.Scholz
Taxonomyedit
Pennisetum is closely related to the genus Cenchrus,[11] and the boundary between them is unclear.[12]Cenchrus was derived from Pennisetum and the two are grouped in a monophyleticclade.[13] Some species now in Pennisetum were once members of Cenchrus, and some have been moved back. A main morphological character used to distinguish them is the degree of fusion of the bristles in the inflorescence, but this is often unreliable. In 2010, researchers proposed to transfer Pennisetum into Cenchrus, along with the related genus Odontelytrum.[14] The genus is currently not accepted as separate from Cenchrus in Kew's Plants of the World Online database.[10]
Speciesedit
The World Checklist of Selected Plant Families lists the following species as synonyms of Cenchrus:[2]
Pennisetum alopecuroides – Chinese fountaingrass, foxtail fountaingrass, swamp-foxtail – Australia, East + Southeast Asia
Pennisetum villosum R.Br. ex Fresen. – feathertop, long-style feathergrass, white foxtail – Africa, Yemen, Saudi Arabia; naturalized in New Zealand, Mediterranean, scattered places in Americas
They are annual or perennial grasses. Some are petite while others can produce stems up to 8 meters tall.[12] The inflorescence is a very dense, narrow panicle containing fascicles of spikelets interspersed with bristles. There are three kinds of bristle, and some species have all three, while others do not. Some bristles are coated in hairs, sometimes long, showy, plumelike hairs that inspired the genus name, the Latinpenna ("feather") and seta ("bristle").[12]
Usesedit
The genus includes pearl millet (P. glaucum), an important food crop. Napier grass (P. purpureum) is used for grazing livestock in Africa.
Many Pennisetum grasses are noxious weeds, including feathertop grass (P. villosum) and kikuyu grass (P. clandestinum), which is also a popular and hardy turf grass in some parts of the world.
^Richard, Louis Claude Marie 1805. in Persoon, Christiaan Hendrik, Synopsis plantarum,seu Enchiridium botanicum, complectens enumerationem systematicam specierum hucusque cognitarum, page 72 in Latin
^ abcdKew World Checklist of Selected Plant Families
^lectotype designated by Chase, Contr. U.S. Natl. Herb. 22: 210 (1921)
^ abMartel, E., et al. (2004). Chromosome evolution of Pennisetum species (Poaceae): implications of ITS phylogeny. Plant Systematics and Evolution 249(3-4), 139-49.
^ abcdWipff, J. K. Pennisetum Rich. The Grass Manual. Flora of North America.
^Ozias-Akins, P., et al. (2003). Molecular characterization of the genomic region linked with apomixis in Pennisetum/Cenchrus. Functional & Integrative Genomics, 3(3), 94-104.
^ abChemisquy, M. A., et al. (2010). Phylogenetic studies favour the unification of Pennisetum, Cenchrus and Odontelytrum (Poaceae): a combined nuclear, plastid and morphological analysis, and nomenclatural combinations in Cenchrus. Annals of Botany 106(1), 107-30.
^"Pennisetum 'Fairy Tails'". RHS. Retrieved 12 June 2019.
^"AGM Plants - Ornamental" (PDF). Royal Horticultural Society. July 2017. p. 107. Retrieved 12 June 2019.