Orthoraphium coreanum (Honda) Ohwi

This species has firmer glumes with more veins than usual, only 2 lodicules, and a distinctive hairy ovary. It has been placed in the genus Orthoraphium, but appears to have very little affinity with the single Himalayan member of that genus. It is also rather anomalous in Achnatherum, but is placed here until generic limits in Stipeae are better understood.

Perennial from a short knotty rhizome. Culms solitary or few, stiffly erect, up to 1 m tall, 2–3 mm in diam., 7–8-noded. Leaves all cauline; leaf sheaths usually longer than internodes, scabrid or puberulous, pilose at collar; leaf blades linear-lanceolate, flat, 10–35 × 1–2 cm, scaberulous or puberulous especially on abaxial surface, base attenuate, apex finely acuminate; ligule 0.5–2 mm, truncate, erose. Panicle linear, 20–35 cm; branches single or paired, simple, puberulous. Spikelets gray-green or dark-green; glumes lanceolate, subequal, 13–15 mm, herbaceous, 7–9-veined with transverse veinlets, apex acuminate; callus obtuse, ca. 1 mm; lemma 1–1.2 cm, indurate at maturity, evenly pubescent, margins overlapping, apex shortly 2-toothed, teeth minutely hairy; awn persistent, 2.5–3.5 cm, scabrid, slightly twisted with lateral grooves below, upper part flexuous. Lodicules 2, lanceolate, ca. 1.8 mm. Anthers 5–7 mm. Ovary villous below styles. Fl. and fr. Aug–Oct.

Anhui, Hebei, Hubei, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Shaanxi, Zhejiang [Japan, Korea].

Hillsides, forests in mountain valleys, grassy places in gullies, near roads; 400–1500 m.

Stipa coreana Honda, Koryo Shikerin No Ippan: 80. 1932; Orthoraphium coreanum (Honda) Ohwi; Orthoraphium grandifolium (Keng) Keng ex P. C. Kuo; Patis coreana (Honda) Ohwi; Stipa grandifolia Keng.