Cenchrus

Veldkamp, J. F., 2014, A revision of Cenchrus incl. Pennisetum (Gramineae) in Malesia with some general nomenclatural notes, Blumea 59 (1), pp. 59-75 : 59

Cenchrus

Linnaeus (1753) described five species in Cenchrus (Gramineae) . He (1742) arbitrarily used Cenchrus for what had been described as Panicastrella P. Micheli (1729) and includ- ed species that now belong to three different subfamilies: the Chloridoideae­Cynodonteae, Panicoideae­Paniceae, and Pooideae­Poeae.

The name is derived from the ancient Greek κεγΧΡ(Ι)ος, Cenchrus . This is the classical Greek name for millet, Panicum miliaceum L. Lunell (1915) referred to a Cenchrus by the Greek physician Hippocrates (fl. 400 BC) in a work that he abbreviated to ‘Morb.’, but which I have not found. The word does not refer to something piercing as Gledhill (2008: 97) has it. Possibly he confused it with κεΝΤΡοΝ, kentron, sharp point, spur, etc.: Kentranthus Raf. : flowers spurred.

Of the Linnaean species C. capitatus L. is now Echinaria capitata (L.) Desf. ( Poeae ), and C. racemosus L. has become Tragus racemosus (L.) All. (Cynodonteae). For the enigmatic C. frutescens L., see below.

Only C. echinatus L. and C. tribuloides L. ( Paniceae ) have remained while on the other hand the genus up till recently increased to about 42 species.

Cenchrus and Pennisetum have always been regarded as closely related. Cenchrus would differ mainly by the usually retrorsely barbed bristles at least basally connate and the chromosomal allopolyploid base number x = 17 (8 + 9).

1 Naturalis Biodiversity Center, section Botany, P.O. Box 9517, 2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands; e-mail: [e-mail]

Chrtek & Osbornova (1996) have proposed a complicated subdivision of Cenchrus , where e.g. C. ciliaris L. and C. setigerus Vahl are in two different subgenera. Martel et al. (2004: 139) found the only Cenchrus they included, C. ciliaris , to nest within Pennisetum . As the generic position of this species has been contentious, this only supports the notion that it belongs in Pennisetum s.s.

Donadio et al. (2009) with more species also observed that Cenchrus is nested in Pennisetum . After the recent unification by Chemisquy et al. (2010) with the much larger Pennisetum there are about 110. The lectotype is C. echinatus , designated by Nash (1913: 166).

In general the species are considered to be noxious weeds because of their spiny burs.

The grains of some species are highly nutritious ( C. brownii Roem. & Schult. , C. biflorus Roxb. , C. prieurii (Kunth) Maire ). See Brink (2006).