The tertiary and quaternary trophotagma enrichment axes end in a pure
distichous pistillate spike (Fig.
Description: Perennial herbs with
distichous leaves, plant form clump, height less than 2 m (about 176 cm tall), has green stilt root, 7-8 plants per clump, 8-9 pairs of leaves per plant.
Leaves alternate, spiral or
distichous; petiolate or subsessile, presence of pulvinus; extrafloral nectaries absent or present, convex, sessile or stipitate, located between the pairs of leaflets or on the petiole; leaflets 1-many pairs, papyraceous to coriaceous, elliptic to oblong, lanceolate to obovate, apex acuminate, rounded to mucronate, base oblique.
The leaves are simple, entire, alternate and
distichous, with parallel venation, petiolate lanceolate to broadly ovate.
In the laboratory, from each quadrate, leaves were removed from 15 shoots in
distichous order of insertion and separated into the various categories defined by Giraud [18].
The oldest groups of this subtribe with a
distichous phyllotaxy (e.g.
The leaves typically are
distichous and may be 3-25 cm long and 2-8 mm wide with a basally pilose adaxial surface and a glabrous to pubescent abaxial surface (Freckmann & Lelong 2003).
The leaves may be small to medium sized, simple, alternate, spiral or
distichous, broadly elliptic and pubescent.
The leaves are produced in a
distichous phyllotaxis, but when the meristem is transformed to a reproductive meristem, its first lateral structures (branches) are produced in a spiral; this shift has been investigated extensively in maize.