Bull. Tokyo Sci. Mus. 18: 1 (1947 ).- Type: Heyne B 10 0296803, India (holo- B).

Eleusine racemosa Heyne ex Roem. & Schult., Syst. Veg. 2: 583 (1817) ;

Eleusine verticillata Roxb., Fl. Ind. 1: 346 (1820) ;

Acrachne verticillata (Roxb.) Wight & Arn. ex Lindl., Intr. Nat. Syst. Bot. ed. 2: 381 (1836).

Regional litterature: FWTA: 395 (1972); FTEA: 258 (1974); Flore Senegal 10: 38, fig. 10, 11 (1991, unpubl.); Pl. Mauritanie: 286 (1998); Poac. Niger:  229, fig. (1999); Fl Zambesiaca 10,2: 159, fig (1999); Fl. Chad (2013); Pl. Sudan & S Sudan: 117 (2015).

Description:

* Tufted annual 30-60 cm long. Culms slender, erect or ascending, 1-3 mm diameter. Leaves broadly linear, flat, 12-14 cm long and 4-11 mm wide, glabrous, tapering to a setaceous tip; ligule hyaline and ciliate, 1-1.5 mm long; sheaths loose, keeled.

* Inflorescence composed of 3-25 slender ascending racemes, grouped in whorls along a central axis of 5-15 cm long, the lower ones solitary. Racemes 3-10 cm long; rhachis angular ending in a spikelet. Spikelets packing broadside, 2-rowed.

* Spikelets compressed, 5-13 mm long, 6-25-flowered. Lower glume narrowly lanceolate, aristate-acuminate, 1-2.5 mm long; upper glume ovate, 2-3 mm long. Lemmas closely overlapping, 2-3 mm long, glabrous, ovate in profile, truncate-emarginate at the tip with the midrib excurrent into a small awn-point of 0.3-1 mm long. Anthers 3, 0.4 mm long. Grain ellipsoid, blackish, 0.8-1.1 mm long, the surface finely granular.

Distribution West Africa: Cape Verde, Mauritania, Senegal, Mali, Niger, Chad, Sudan, South Sudan.

Distribution world-wide: Egypt, Ethiopia, DRC and Kenya, Tanzania, southern Africa, Asia and Australia.