Bull.Mus. Hist. Nat., sér. 2,20: 469 (1948).- Type : Chevalier 22075, Ivory Coast (holo- P, iso- K).
Regional litterature: FWTA : 407 (1972) ; FTEA : 359 (1974); Ghana grasses: 243 (1977); Poac. CI: 196, fig. (1995); Fl. Bénin: 247 (2006); Pl. Burkina Faso: 116 (2012).
Description:
* Solitary-stemmed or slightly tufted annual, up to 0.9 m. Culms slender. Leaves long linear, 4-15 cm long and 2-6 mm wide, glabrous with comb-like margins fringed with short stiff well-spaced white hairs, the base slightly rounded with a whitened collar; ligule reduced to a fringe of short hairs; sheath glabrous, the margins slightly hairy towards the apex.
* Inflorescence a fairly narrow open panicle of horizontal to ascending branches arranged in 5-15 prominent whorls on the central axis. Branches free at the base, the lower branches bearing 5-12 spikelets.
* Spikelets 1.5-2 mm long, glabrous to scaberulose, reddish-purple. Glumes membranous; lower glume lanceolate, 0.7-1.3 mm long; upper glume oblong elliptic, as long as spikelet. Lemma elliptic, as upper glume, slightly shorter. Stigma white. Anthers violette, 3, 0.5-0.7 mm long. Caryopsis spherical, 0.8-1 mm long.
Note: S subglobosus resembles S panicoides but lacks the peculiar panicle-structure of the latter, S. stolzii with smaller spikelets and grains. It differs from S. paniculatus in little more than the spherical grain-shape.
Distribution West Africa: Mali, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Benin, Niger, Nigeria.
Distribution world-wide: Kenya and Tanzania.