Kew Bull 1934: 431 (1934).- Type: Kersting 662, Togo, Sokode-Basari (holo- B).
Trichopteryx togoensis Pilger in Engl., Bot. Jahrb. 37: 128 (1904);
Arundinella togoensis (Pilg.) Roberty, Bull. IFAN, sér. A, 17: 56 (1955);
Trichopteryx crinita Stapf, J. Bot. (Morot) 19: 106 (1905).- Type: Pobeguin 505, Guinea, Kouroussa (holo- K).
Regional litterature: FWTA: 416 (1972); Ghana grasses: 184(1977); Gram. Togo: 248, fig. (1983); Fl. Mauritania: 421 (1991); Gram. Cameroun: 368 (1992); Poac. CI: 234, fig. (1995); Pl. Mauritanie: 295 (1998); Poac. Niger: 330, fig. (1999);Fl. Bénin: 216 (2006) ; Pl. Vasc. Guiné-Bissau: 169 (2006); Fl. Guinea Bissau: 138 (2008); Fl. Guinée: 465 (2009); Pl. Burkina Faso: 96 (2012); Fl. Chad (2013); Pl. Sudan & S Sudan: 137 (2015).
Description:
* Coarse erect annual, solitary or in small tufts, 0.9-1.2 m high. Culms slender, occasionally branched; a ring of white hairs at the nodes. Leaves long linear, 5-40 cm long and 6-8 mm wide, flat to slightly folded, with a white midrib, glabrous with hairy margins rolled slightly inwards; base hairy, narrowed, slightly rounded; ligule a line of short hairs; sheath glabrous or hairy towards the tip.
* Inflorescence a spreading golden-green panicle up to 35 cm long with slender verticillated branches of up to 15 cm long, each ending in three pedicelled spikelets; one almost sessile, the middle with pedicel 5-8 mm, and the longest 20-25 mm.
* Spikelets glabrous, yellow-brown, 22-25 mm long. Lower glume glabrous, 9-12 mm long; upper 25-30 mm, rounded on the tip. Lower lemma flattened, without a palea; upper lemma hairy, glossy dark brown at maturity, 5-7 mm long, a sharp barbed callus of 2 mm long with unequal teeth and a coarse geniculate awn up to 11-15 cm long, twisted below and pale and curved above.
Distribution West Africa: Mauritania, Senegal, Gambia, Guinea Bissau, Guinea, Mali, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Togo, Benin, Niger, Nigeria, Cameroon, CAR, Chad, Sudan.
Distribution world-wide: Congo.