Olyreae is a

tribe The term tribe is used in many different contexts to refer to a category of human social group. The predominant worldwide usage of the term in English is in the discipline of anthropology. This definition is contested, in part due to confl ...

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

es in the bamboo subfamily (

Bambusoideae Bamboos are a diverse group of evergreen perennial flowering plants making up the subfamily Bambusoideae of the grass family Poaceae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family. The origin of the word "bamboo" is uncertain, ...

). Unlike the other two bamboo tribes, Olyreae are

herbaceous Herbaceous plants are vascular plants that have no persistent woody stems above ground. This broad category of plants includes many perennials, and nearly all annuals and biennials. Definitions of "herb" and "herbaceous" The fourth edition o ...

and do not have a woody stem. Their

sister group In phylogenetics, a sister group or sister taxon, also called an adelphotaxon, comprises the closest relative(s) of another given unit in an evolutionary tree. Definition The expression is most easily illustrated by a cladogram: Taxon A and ...

are the tropical woody bamboos (

Bambuseae The Bambuseae are the most diverse tribe of bamboos in the grass family (Poaceae). They consist of woody species from tropical regions, including some giant bamboos. Their sister group are the small herbaceous bamboos from the tropics in tribe Ol ...

). Olyreae grow in the understorey of humid tropical forests. They are mainly distributed in the

Neotropics The Neotropical realm is one of the eight biogeographic realms constituting Earth's land surface. Physically, it includes the tropical terrestrial ecoregions of the Americas and the entire South American temperate zone. Definition In bioge ...

around the

Amazon Basin The Amazon basin is the part of South America drained by the Amazon River and its tributaries. The Amazon drainage basin covers an area of about , or about 35.5 percent of the South American continent. It is located in the countries of Boli ...

but there is also one species from Africa, ''

Olyra latifolia ''Olyra latifolia'', commonly known as carrycillo, is a species of bamboo in the grass family Poaceae. It occurs in Mexico, Central and South America, and in sub-Saharan Africa. It is a common species, up to tall, growing prolifically in rainfor ...

'', and one from New Guinea, '' Buergersiochloa bambusoides''. The tribe is divided into three subtribes with 21 genera:

References

Bambusoideae Poaceae tribes {{Poaceae-stub