FWTA ed 1.2: 544 (1936).- Type: Stuhlman 1961, Tanzania (holo- B, iso- K).
Trichopteryx kagerensis K. Schum. in Engl., Planzenw. Ost Afr. C: 109 (1895);
Trichopteryx reflexa Pilger, Bot. Jahrb. Syst. 33: 52 (1902).- Type: Zenker 498, Cameroon, Yaoundé (iso- K,P).
Regional litterature: FTA 10:28 (1937); FWTA: 419 (1972); Ghana grasses: 181 (1977); FTEA: 470 (1982); Gram. Cameroun: 378, fig. 81 (1992); Poac. CI: 244, fig. (1995); Fl. Ethiopia & Eritrea 7: 289 (1995); Fl. Guinée: 465 (2009); Pl. Burkina Faso: 95 (2012).
Description:
* Densely tufted erect perennial, 0.25-1 m high. Culms hard slender and wiry, the knobby black nodes either glabrous or with at most thinly silky with stiff white ascending hairs. Leaves narrow to fairly broad, linear, 2.5-15 cm long and 1-4 mm wide flat, usually hairy but sometimes glabrous with scabrid margins, curling characteristically on drying; the base slightly narrowed, passing straight into the sheath; ligule a narrow membrane with short stiff white hairs; sheath glabrous to hairy with ciliate margins. Roots a fine dense fibrous mat.
* Inflorescence a loose linear golden-brown panicle of 5-15 cm long; branches flexuous and delicately ascending and flexuous, bearing hairy pedicelled spikelets.
* Spikelets lanceolate, 6-9 mm long; callus 0.5-1 mm long, white setose, 2-toothed. Glumes chartaceous, dark brown, setose with tubercle-based hairs; lower glume ovate, obtuse, 3-5 mm long; upper glume lanceolate, obtuse. Lower lemma similar to upper glume, lanceolate, 6-9 mm long, obtuse; upper lemma oblong, 3.5-5 mm long, coriaceous, pubescent, entire or obscurely bilobed with geniculate awn with twisted column of 20-30 mm long from a sinus. Anthers 2.
Distribution West Africa: Guinea, Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Nigeria, Cameroon.
Distribution world-wide: Congo, DRC, Ethiopia, Uganda, and C and East Africa and Ethiopia.