Austrobaileya 5(3): 526 (1999).- Type: Vogel, Nigeria (holo- K).
Andropogon nigritanus Benth. in Hook. Fl. Nigrit. 573 (1849);
Vetiveria nigritana (Benth.) FTA 9: 157 (1917);
Mandelorna insignis Steud., Syn. Pl. Glum. 1: 359 (1854).- Type: Senegambie.
Regional litterature: FI. Agr. Congo Belge 1: 100 (1929); FI. Nigeria: 110 (1970); FWTA: 470 (1972); Ghana grasses (1977); FTEA : 739 (1982) ; Gram. Togo: 339 (1983); Fl. Mauritania: 435, fig (1991); Gram. Cameroun: 409, fig. 90 (1992); Poac. CI: 488, fig. (1995); Pl. Mauritanie: 305 (1998); Poac. Niger : 524, fig. (1999); Fl. Zambesiaca 10,4: 36, fig. 14 (2002); Fl. Bénin: 250, fig. (2006); Fl. Guinea Bissau: 134 (2008); Fl. Guinée: 480 (2009); Pl. Burkina Faso: 77 (2012); Fl. Chad (2013); Pl. Sudan & S Sudan: 123 (2015).
Description:
* Robust, densely tufted, shortly rhizomatous, erect perennial bunchgrass of 1.5-2.5 m tall; base with old, light brown sheaths. Culms coarse, simple, pale yellow-green, compressed below with short thick rhizomes. Leaves light green, erect or ascending at an acute angle to the culm, linear, to 1 m long and 1 cm broad, folded at first then expanded or partially folded later, glabrous, pale green; the margins with a sharply toothed cutting edge; the base passing straight into the sheath; ligule a vestigious membranous rim, shortly hairy; sheath glabrous and strongly compressed, especially the sharply keeled ones at the base of the culm, pale yellow, shining and closely interleaved at the base. Roots coarse, yellowish.
* Inflorescence in a pinkish-purple open spreading panicle up to 40 cm long, of fine flexuous slender racemes arranged in whorls along the central axis. Racemes 10-13 cm long, on peduncles of up to 2 cm; internodes and pedicels lineair, 5 mm and pedicels 2.5-4 mm long. Spikelets in pairs, boh similar.
* Sessile spikelets lanceolate, 5-7 mm long with a barbed rounded callus, spinulose, glaucous to purplish. Glumes spiny; the lower rounded, acute; the upper boat-shaped with ciliate hyaline margins. Upper lemma hyaline, bi-dentated with a short straight or kinked awn 2-6 mm long, slightly exerted from the spikelet. Pedicelled spikelet 4.5 mm long; lower glume without awn.
Distribution West Africa: Mauritania, Senegal, Gambia, Guinea Bissau, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Mali, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Togo, Benin, Niger, Nigeria, Cameroon, CAR, Chad, Sudan, South Sudan.
Distribution world-wide: Congo, DRC, Uganda, and E and southern Africa.