FTA 9: 454 (1919).- Type: MacGregor 210, Nigeria (lecto- K; iso- P,W); Chevalier 17149, Côte Ivoire (syn- P).
Regional litterature: FWTA: 452 (1972); Ghana grasses: 135 (1977); Gram. Togo: 195 (1983); Gram. Cameroun: 313 (1992); Fl. Bénin: 198 (2006); Poac. CI: 424, fig. (1995); Pl. Burkina Faso: 80 (2012); Fl. Chad (2013).
Description:
* Annual, simple slender erect bunchgrass, sometimes straggling with culms from the lower nodes, up to 0.6-1.2 m. Culms easily crushed, yellow, nodes sometimes bearded with short white ascending hairs. Leaves flat or convolute, attenuate, 10-25 cm long and 1.5-3 mm wide, glabrous to hairy with a fine white midrib, scabrid margins; base barely rounded or passed straight into sheath; ligule short truncate ciliate membrane; basal sheaths usually conspicuously hairy.
* Inflorescence with 3-9 racemes, digitate, erect, along a common axis up to 6 cm. Racemes flexuous, 10-15 cm long with wingless, angular rachis of 0.3-0.4 mm width. Spikelets pedicelled, in threes in the middle of the raceme; pedicels unequal, the longest 2-2.5 mm long.
* Spikelets oblong, acute, 1.7-2.2 mm long. Lower glume absent or obscure; upper glume lanceolate, acute, 0.75 length of spikelet (Zon 5427, 5637a 1/3- ½ length), 3 -veined, hairy on veins with clavate red hairs. Lower lemma floret oblong, acute, as long as spikelet, 7 -veined, pubescent with clavate hairs; upper lemma ovate, acute, 1.7-2.2 mm long, cartilaginous, black, shiny, margins flat, covering most of palea.
Distribution West Africa and world-wide: Senegal, Guinea, Mali, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Togo, Benin, Nigeria, Cameroon, CAR, Chad.