''Sartidia'' is a

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

Southern Africa Southern Africa is the southernmost region of Africa. No definition is agreed upon, but some groupings include the United Nations geoscheme for Africa, United Nations geoscheme, the intergovernmental Southern African Development Community, and ...

n and Madagascan plants in the

grass family Poaceae ( ), also called Gramineae ( ), is a large and nearly ubiquitous family of monocotyledonous flowering plants commonly known as grasses. It includes the cereal grasses, bamboos, the grasses of natural grassland and species cultivated in ...

. It was split from ''

Aristida ''Aristida'' is a very nearly Cosmopolitan distribution, cosmopolitan genus of plants in the Poaceae, grass family. ''Aristida'' is distinguished by having three Awn (Botany), awns (bristles) on each lemma (botany), lemma of each floret. The gen ...

'' in 1963 by South African botanist

Bernard de Winter Bernard de Winter (31 July 1924 - 8 May 2017 Pretoria) was a South African botanist who from 1973 was Director of the Botanical Research Institute, which later became the National Botanical Institute and then the South African National Biodiversi ...

and contains six known species, of which '' Sartidia perrieri'' is considered

extinct Extinction is the termination of an organism by the death of its Endling, last member. A taxon may become Functional extinction, functionally extinct before the death of its last member if it loses the capacity to Reproduction, reproduce and ...

. Their natural habitats are warm, semi-arid

savanna A savanna or savannah is a mixed woodland-grassland (i.e. grassy woodland) biome and ecosystem characterised by the trees being sufficiently widely spaced so that the canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to reach th ...

and

dry forest The tropical and subtropical dry broadleaf forest is a habitat type defined by the World Wide Fund for Nature and is located at tropical and subtropical latitudes. Though these forests occur in climates that are warm year-round, and may receive ...

at altitudes of where rainfall ranges from 250 to 1,500 mm per year. They are

perennial In horticulture, the term perennial ('' per-'' + '' -ennial'', "through the year") is used to differentiate a plant from shorter-lived annuals and biennials. It has thus been defined as a plant that lives more than 2 years. The term is also ...

grasses with inflorescence in a

panicle In botany, a panicle is a much-branched inflorescence. (softcover ). Some authors distinguish it from a compound spike inflorescence, by requiring that the flowers (and fruit) be pedicellate (having a single stem per flower). The branches of a p ...

. Other than most species in subfamily

Aristidoideae The Aristideae is the sole tribe of grasses in the monotypic subfamily Aristidoideae of the true grass family Poaceae. Its members are herbaceous annuals or perennials found in the tropics, subtropics and temperate zones. The tribe has over 300 ...

, ''Sartidia'' species use the ancestral C photosynthetic pathway.

Phylogenetic In biology, phylogenetics () is the study of the evolutionary history of life using observable characteristics of organisms (or genes), which is known as phylogenetic inference. It infers the relationship among organisms based on empirical dat ...

analyses suggest that ''Sartidia'' is the sister genus of ''

Stipagrostis ''Stipagrostis'' is a genus of African, Asian, and Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and exte ...

'', an important C genus from Africa and Southwest Asia. ; Species * '' Sartidia angolensis'' (C.E.Hubb.) De Winter –

Angola Angola, officially the Republic of Angola, is a country on the west-Central Africa, central coast of Southern Africa. It is the second-largest Portuguese-speaking world, Portuguese-speaking (Lusophone) country in both total area and List of c ...

Zambia Zambia, officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country at the crossroads of Central Africa, Central, Southern Africa, Southern and East Africa. It is typically referred to being in South-Central Africa or Southern Africa. It is bor ...

Zimbabwe file:Zimbabwe, relief map.jpg, upright=1.22, Zimbabwe, relief map Zimbabwe, officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Bots ...

Namibia Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country on the west coast of Southern Africa. Its borders include the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Angola and Zambia to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south; in the no ...

* '' Sartidia dewinteri'' Munday & Fish –

Mpumalanga Mpumalanga () is one of the nine provinces of South Africa. The name means "East", or literally "The Place Where the Sun Rises" in the Nguni languages. Mpumalanga lies in eastern South Africa, bordering Eswatini and Mozambique. It shares bor ...

(South Africa),

Eswatini Eswatini, formally the Kingdom of Eswatini, also known by its former official names Swaziland and the Kingdom of Swaziland, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. It is bordered by South Africa on all sides except the northeast, where i ...

* '' Sartidia isaloensis'' Voronts., Razanatsoa & Besnard – Madagascar * '' Sartidia jucunda'' (Schweick.) De Winter –

Limpopo Limpopo () is the northernmost Provinces of South Africa, province of South Africa. It is named after the Limpopo River, which forms the province's western and northern borders. The term Limpopo is derived from Rivombo (Livombo/Lebombo), a ...

(South Africa) * '' Sartidia perrieri'' (A.Camus) Bourreil – Madagascar (extinct) * ''

Sartidia vanderystii ''Sartidia'' is a genus of Southern African and Madagascar, Madagascan plants in the Poaceae, grass family. It was split from ''Aristida'' in 1963 by South African botanist Bernard de Winter and contains six known species, of which ''Sartidia per ...

'' (De Wild.) De Winter –

Democratic Republic of the Congo The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), also known as the DR Congo, Congo-Kinshasa, or simply the Congo (the last ambiguously also referring to the neighbouring Republic of the Congo), is a country in Central Africa. By land area, it is t ...

References

External links

Poaceae genera Aristidoideae {{Poaceae-stub