Ess. Agrost. 80, t. 16, fig. 8 (1812).- Type: Palisot de Beauvois s.n., Nigeria (holo- G).
Streptogyna gerontogaea Hook. F., Fl. Ceyl. 5: 301 (1901).
Regional litterature: FTEA: 23, fig (1970); FWTA: 365 (1972); Ghana grasses: 247, fig 90 (1977); Gram. Togo: 329 (1983); Gram. Cameroun: 42, fig 7 (1992); Fl. Ethiopia & Eritrea 7: 8, fig (1995); Poac. CI: 72, fig. (1995); Fl. Bénin: 248 (2006); Fl. Guinea Bissau: 143 (2008); Fl. Guinée: 480 (2009); Pl. Sudan & S Sudan: 149 (2015).
Description:
* Erect broad-leaved perennial forest grass, ascending up to 1.1 m high, with long vigorously spreading scaly rhizomes. Culms erect. Leaves linear lanceolate, up to 40 cm long and 3.5 cm wide, the fine nerves connected by short transverse veins, glabrous or minutely pubescent, with scabrid margins, the base narrowed into a petiole of up to 2.5 cm long, often present in the form of a hairy rim; ligule a brownish toothed membrane; sheaths glabrous with auricles and margins fringed with hairs, slightly compressed and keeled, at least towards the apex.
* Inflorescence a long dense narrow raceme of 10-30 cm long, bearing long dark green to brown awned spikelets; pedicels 1-2 mm long.
* Spikelets 2-3 cm long dark green to brown, with 4-7 florets and a rachilla disarticulating between the lemmas. Lower glume 3-6 mm long; upper glume 15-20 mm. Lemmas silky at the base, lanceolate, with a scaberulose awn of 15-25 mm long from the bifid tip and tightly coiled minutely barbed persistent stigmas of up to 2 cm long, tangling together. Callus barbed, sub-acute, 1 mm long, the rhachilla internode of 4 mm long persistently attached to the base forming an efficient hooked mechanism for dispersal.
Distribution West Africa: Senegal, Guinea Bissau, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ivory Coast, Togo, Benin, Nigeria, Cameroon, CAR, South Sudan.
Distribution world-wide: C and E Africa, Ethiopia, Angola, India and Sri Lanka.