in Duperrey, Bot. Voy. Coquille 127 (1831).- Type: India (holo- LINN).
Panicum dimidiatum Linn., Sp. Pl. 57 (1753).
Regional litterature: FTA 9 : 580 (1920); FWTA: 435 (1972); Ghana grasses: 243 (1977); FTEA : 549 (1982); Fl. Bénin: 247 (2006); Pl. Burkina Faso: 116 (2012).
Description:
* Prostate creeping mat-forming perennial with well-branched stolons rooting at the nodes and erect or ascending culms, up to 0,3 m. Leaves in fan shape bunches developing from the rooted nodes, linear with a distinctive obtuse or rounded tip; folded and keeled at first, but eventually partially expanded, glabrous and with a smooth to slightly scabrid margin; base rounded; igule a barely visible fringe of very short hairs; sheath glabrous, strongly compressed and keeled, usually diverging from the culms. Culms compressed, smooth. Roots stout and well developed.
* Inflorescence a terminal a thick glabrous spike with narrow herbaceous wings alternating on each side of a wavy midrib and partially enclosing short racemes of up to seven (often less) spikelets in hollow chambers in the rachis.
* Spikelets ovate, 4-5 mm long. Lower glume ovate, 0.5-1.5 mm long; upper glume as long as spikelet acute. Lower lemma ovate, coriaceous, as long as spikelet; upper lemma 3.5-4.5 mm long, chartaceous.
Distribution West Africa: Introduced in Burkina Faso, Ghana, Benin, Cameroon.
Distribution world-wide: Egypt, E and southern Africa, Asia.