Syst. Veg. 2: 788 (1817).- Type: Heyne, India (holo- B, destroyed).
Regional litterature: FTA 9: 34 (1917); FWTA: 473 (1972); Ghana grasses: 247, fig. 92 (1977); FTEA: 744, fig. (1982); Gram. Togo: 329, fig. (1983); Gram. Cameroun: 421, fig. 93 (1992); Fl. Bénin: 248 (1992); Fl. Ethiopia & Eritrea 7: 313, fig (1995); Poac. Niger : 542, fig. (1999); Fl. Zambesiaca 10,4: 54, fig (2002); Fl. Guinée: 480 (2009); Pl. Burkina Faso: 116 (2012); Pl. Sudan & S Sudan: 150 (2015).
Description:
* Annual bunchgrass of 0.5-1 m high. Culms leafy erect or ascending, rooting at the lower lodes; base purplish. Leaves lanceolate, 20-25 cm long and 25 mm wide, flat or slightly folded, often distinctly hairy on both surfaces, the scabrid margins conspicuously fringed with rigid comb-like hairs; base broadly rounded, clasping the culms, with a whitened collar; ligule a short translucent membrane; sheath often hairy throughout. Culms slightly compressed, yellow to purple strongly prop-rooted. Roots stout. Leaves, culms and roots extremely bitter-tasting.
* Inflorescence a cluster of 3-8 large digitate brittle racemes, the lowest digitate, the upper on a short axis of up to 1-3 cm long Racemes 5-10 cm long, very fragile; rhachis weak; internodes and pedicels glabrous, claviform, 8 mm long.
* Sessile spikelet 6-13 mm long, light green turning purple-brown. Lower glume ovate, rostrate, covered in large warts, these forming transverse or semi-circular ridges upwards; upper glume coarsely transversely ridged along the midline, rostrate. Upper lemma bifid, with a fine distinctly bent awn, pale above and dark below of 1-2.5 cm long. Anthers yellow. Pedicelled spikelet reduced into a linear flat pedicel, slightly longer than sessile spikelet.
Distribution West Africa: Senegal, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Togo, Benin, Niger, Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad, Sudan, South Sudan.
Distribution world-wide: Congo, Ethiopia, Uganda and Eritrea, Tanzania and southern Africa, Asia.