Roegneria: its generic limits and justification for its recognition

Abstract

We document diagnostic characteristics of Roegneria by which it differs from genera with which it has often been confused. Characteristics of Roegneria are the absence of underground runners; slightly curved and elongated rachis with long internodes, each rachis node bearing one spikelet only and often adhering to the internode, and inflorescence appearing more or less one sided because of the disposition of the spikelets; spikelet functionally disarticulating below the glumes; glume symmetric with nerves tapering in the apex; lemma with nerves tapering in the apex; and palea generally shorter than the lemma, and if equal to the lemma then the tip obtuse, truncate, or retuse. Genera difficult to separate from Roegneria are Agropyron, Elymus, and Elytrigia; these share one or more characteristics but none have them in the same combination. We also stress the merit of recognizing Roegneria for germ-plasm utilization. Key words: Roegneria, Triticeae, generic limits, Elymus, Agropyron, Elytrigia.

Indigenous New Zealand Triticeae: Gramineae

“…The most recent attempt at clarifying Elymus L. as a genus is by Baum et al (1991) where it is primarily done by exclusion, that is, by the separation from Elymus of a large number of taxa into Roegneria C. Koch and by separating yet others into Kengyilia Yen & Yang (Yang et al 1992); the residue is Elymus s.s.…”

“…Anthosachne (Steud.) Tzvelev, which comprises about 20 species; most are from eastern and south central Asia (Bor 1960(Bor , 1970Tzvelev 1976;Cope 1982;, 1984Baum et al 1991;Lu & Salomon 1992). All these boreal species were transferred to Roegneria in Baum et al (1991).…”

“…Two particular reasons have prompted this statement on indigenous New Zealand Triticeae: (1) the re-examination of all available specimens of Elymus sect. Stenostachys during the process of recognising Australopyrum calcis (Connor et al 1993) as new, revealed an undescribed taxon; and (2) Baum et al ( 1991) advanced Roegneria as the most appropriate genus for, inter alia, species of Elymus sect. Anthosachne.…”

Taxonomy of the Triticeae: a historical perspective*

“…Only five of the genera recognized today have had over 50 % of their species described as members of that genus (Table 2). Of these, only Aegilops, Hordeum, and Kengyilia have maintained basically the same interpretation since they were first published, and Kengyilia, which was first described in 1990 (YEN andYANG 1990) is likely to undergo substantial change in the near future ( BAUM et al 1991).…”

Orthogonal design in the optimization of a start codon targeted (SCoT) PCR system in Roegneria kamoji Ohwi

“…There are about 120 R. kamoji species worldwide (Baum et al, 1991), of which 70 are located in the northwest, southwest, and north of China. R. kamoji is a fine forage grass because of its high feeding value, and high resistance to some biotic and abiotic stresses such as diseases caused by gibberella (Fusarium graminearum) and low-lying wet stress (Jiang and Liu, 1990;Yang et al, 2001).…”