Sp. Pl. 54 (1753); Gen. Gram.: 330 (1986).- Type species: Saccharum offîcinarum L.
Erianthus Michaud, Fl. Bor. Am. 1: 54 (1803)
Description:
* Tufted or rhizomatous perennials, often several meters high. Culms robust, solid. Leaves linear; ligule scarious or a line of hairs.
* Inflorescence an often large, silvery and plumose panicle with numerous racemes on its branches. Racemes loose, flexuous and fragile; rhachis-internodes and pedicels linear, slender.
* Spikelets lanceolate, dorsally compressed; callus short, obtuse. Sessile spikelet small, mostly with copious white beard from its callus. Lower glume cartilaginous to coriaceous, laterally 2-keeled. Lower floret reduced to a sterile hyaline lemma; upper lemma entire or bidentate, often with a short awn. Anthers 2-3.
Genus with 35-40 species throughout the tropics; in Africa 2 wild species and the introduced cultivated sugar-cane (S. offîcinarum).