Smallcane

Lasiacis divaricata (L.) Hitchc. (Poaceae), smallcane or tibisee, is a clambering perennial bamboo-like grass native to the West Indies, Mexico, Central America and tropical South America, where it scrambles through thickets and forest margins from sea level to about 1500 m. The slender, woody, often zigzag culms reach 2-5 m long and root at the lower nodes, with hollow internodes and persistent glabrous sheaths. Leaf blades are flat, lanceolate, 5-15 cm long and 1-2.5 cm wide, with a rounded asymmetric base and a finely tapered apex. The inflorescence is a diffuse open panicle 8-20 cm long with capillary branches that spread or droop at maturity. Spikelets are characteristic of the genus: globose to ovoid, 3-4 mm long, bearing a conspicuous tuft of white woolly hair at the apex and a hardened shining lemma that turns black and oily at maturity, an adaptation thought to attract bird dispersal. It is locally common in disturbed tropical scrub.