👉 Cenchrus is a genus of flowering plants in the family Asteraceae, native to Asia, Africa, and parts of South America. The genus was named by Carl Linnaeus in 1753 after the Chinese scholar Liu Huifang (1692-1758), who described them. Cenchrus species are characterized by their long, slender stems with a single leaf on each side, and large flowers that often have more than one ovary