Syn. Pl. Glum. 1: 85 (1905).- Type: Hb Linn. 80-35, Portugal (holo- LINN).
Panicum dactylon Linn., Sp. Pl. 58 (1753).
Regional litterature: FWTA: 403 (1972); FTEA: 318 (1974); Ghana grasses: 128, fig 26 (1977); Fl. Sahara: 176 (1977); Gram. Togo: 186, fig. (1983); Fl. Mauritania: 417, fig (1991); Gram. Cameroun: 179, fig. 39 (1992); Poicelot, Poac. CI: 180, fig. (1995); Fl. Ethiopia & Eritrea 7: 175, fig. (1995); Pl. Mauritanie: 289 (1998); Poac. Niger: 283, fig. (1999); Fl. Zambesiaca 10,2: 235 (1999); Fl. Bénin: 195 (2006); Pl. Vasc. Guiné-Bissau: 165 (2006); Fl. Guinea Bissau: 135 (2008); Fl. Guinée: 454 (2009); Pl. Burkina Faso: 78 (2012); Fl. Chad (2013); Pl. Sudan & S Sudan: 124 (2015).
Description:
* Well-branched mat-forming perennial, spreading by rhizomes as well as my creeping stolons with fascicles of barren shoots and short erect slender flowering culms rising from the rooted nodes, 0.1-0.4 m high. Culms short, slender, glabrous. Leaves short linear, usually partly folded and glabrous, 1-12 cm long and 2-4 mm broad, with smooth to slightly scabrid margins; bases rounded; ligule a line of dense short hairs; sheath glabrous, fully covering the barren shoots and much of the flowering ones. Roots vigorous.
* Inflorescence 4-6 digitate slender terminal racemes. Racemes 2.5-6 (- 8.5) cm long with 2-seriate spikelets, closely imbricate and crowded on the underside of the triquetrous villous rhachis.
* Spikelets ovate, 2-2.5 mm long, disarticulating below floret. Glumes persistant, subequal, lanceolate, scabrid on the nerve, herbaceous, the lower 1-1.5 mm, the upper 1.5-2 mm long. Lemma ovate, 2-2.5 mm long, laterally compressed, cartilaginous, silky on the keel; palea short, glabrous. Caryopsis oblong, 1.5 mm long.
Distribution West Africa: Cape Verde, Mauritania, Senegal, Gambia, Guinea Bissau, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Mali, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Togo, Benin, Niger, Nigeria, Cameroon, CAR, Chad and Sudan, South Sudan.
Distribution world-wide: Western Sahara, Morocco, Algeria, Tunesia, Libya, Egypt, Ethiopia, Uganda, DRC, Congo, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea and C, NE, E and southern Africa, southern Europe, Asia and Australia; introduced in the Americas.