Fl. Capensis 7: 381 (1898).- Type: Drège 4312, South Africa (iso- K,S) Drège 1432, South Africa (syn- P); Drège 4313, South Africa (syn- P).
Panicum diagonale Nees, Fl. Afr. Austr. 23 (1841) ;
Digitaria diagonalis var. hirsuta (De Wildeman & Th.Durand) Troupin, Fl. Garamba 1: 29 (1856).- Type: Thonner 82, DRC (holo- BR) ;
Panicum diagonale var. hirsutum De Wild.& Th.Dur., Pl. Thonn. Congol. 4 (1900).- Type: Thonner 82: DRC (holo- BR);
Digitaria uniglumis (A. Rich.) Stapf, FTA 9: 474 (1919).- Type: Quartin Dillon s.n., Ethiopia (syn- W); Schimper 97, Ethiopia (syn- W; isosyn- BR,K,LG,M,MPU,S).
Digitaria uniglumis (A. Rieh.) Stapf var. major Stapf, FTA 9: 476 (1919).
Regional litterature: Fl. Agrost. Congo Belge 2: 51, fig. 21 (1934); FWTA: 450 (1972); Ghana grasses: 135, fig. 29 (1977) (1977); FTEA: 624, fig. 145 (1982); Gram. Togo: 195 (1983); Fl. Gabon 5:46 (1962); Gram. Cameroun: 312 (1992); Fl. Ethiopia & Eritrea 7: 247, fig. (1995); Poac. CI: 414, fig. (1995); Fl. Bénin: 198 (2006); Fl. Guinée: 455 (2009); Pl. Burkina Faso: 80 (2012); Fl. Chad (2013); Pl. Sudan & S Sudan: 125 (2015).
Description:
* Robust perennial bunchgrass, up to 1-3 m high, forming dense tussocks, the base silky hairy, breaking into fibers. Culms erect, the nodes hispid. Leaves long-lineair, 10-60 cm long and 1-16 mm large, flat, glabrous to hairy, scabrid margins, base hairy with hairy margins; ligule short, hair-fringed membrane; sheaths often conspicuously densely bristle-hairy, basal ones splitting into an accumulated mass of fibres and silky hairy bases.
* Inflorescence composed of 4-50 long dark stiffly spreading or ascending slender racemes arranged along a central axis of up to 40 cm. Racemes 6-20 cm long with a slender triquetrous rhachis, glabrous or with hairs. Spikelets in groups of 2-6 densely crowded in 2 rows on one side of the rhachis on pedicels with white setae of up to 2 mm or more on the tip.
* Spikelets small, elliptic to oblong elliptic, 1.5-2.5 mm long, glabrous. Lower glume absent; upper glume a hyaline, nerveless scale of up to 0.1-0.7 mm long. Lower lemma as long or slightly shorter than spikelet, 3-(5-7) nerved; upper lemma elliptic, coriaceous, longitudinally striate-punctate, shiny brown to black.
Distribution West Africa: Senegal, Sierra Leone, Mali, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Togo, Benin, Nigeria, Cameroon, CAR, Chad, Sudan, South Sudan.
Distribution world-wide: Ethiopia, Uganda, DRC, Congo, Gabon and Eritrea, C, E and southern Africa.
Note: A very variable species, sometimes divided in 3 ill-difined varieties that integrade completely.