Purple false brome (Brachypodium distachyon)
Description
Brachypodium is a genus of plants in the grass family, widespread across much of Africa, Eurasia, and Latin America.It is classified in its own tribe Brachypodieae. Flimsy upright stems form tussocks. Flowers appear in compact spike-like racemes with 5-25 flowers on each short-stalked spikelet in summer. Leaves are flat or curved. According to an October 18, 2010 issue of "Nature Online" Laura Longo, an archeologist at University of Siena in Italy found evidence of Brachypodium and cattail (Typha spp.) residues on prehistoric human grinding tools dated 28,000 years ago from Bilancino in central Italy. A related article authored by Anna Revedin, Biancamaria Aranguren, Roberto Becattini, Laura Longo, Emanuele Marconi, Marta Mariotti Lippi, Natalia Skakun, Andrey Sinitsyn, Elena Spiridonova, and Ji-- Svoboda, was contemporaneously published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America and clarifies that the grain residues resemble Brachypodium, based on a comparison to two modern specimens: "Among these, the grains, which are slightly angular, with hardly visible centric, point-shaped hila and adequate dimensions (in the sample measuring 9-14 -m), appeared very similar to those of Brachypodium or related genera."
Taxonomic tree
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Domain: Eukarya
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Kingdom: Plantae
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Phylum: Magnoliophyta
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Class: Liliopsida
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Order: Poales
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Family: Poaceae
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Genus: Brachypodium
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