Kew Bull. 1908: 410 (1908).- Type: Baumann 318, Togo (holo K).
Andropogon tumidulus Stapf, FTA 9: 252 (1919).
Regional litterature: FTA 9: 250 (1919); FWTA: 486 (1972); Ghana grasses: 95 (1977); FTEA: 782 (1982); Gram. Togo: 144 (1983); Poac. CI: 566, fig. (1995); Fl. Zambesiaca: 73 (2002); Fl. Bénin: 181 (2006); Fl. Guinée: 450 (2009); Pl. Burkina Faso: 69 (2012).
Description: Perennial bunchgrass of 0.8-1.8 m high. Culm erect slender, yellowish. Leaves linear 10-40 cm long and 1-5 mm wide, puberulous (Guinea) to mostly very hairy, a distinct white midrib and scabrid margins; ligule ciliate with erect auricles fused into a pinkish membrane of 3-12 mm long; sheath glabrous to hairy.
* Inflorescence a linear spathate panicle of 20-25 cm long, with terminal and axillary racemes, subtended by a leaf-sheath or a spatheole. Racemes paired, reddish green, 3-8 cm long; rhachis fragile, ciliate on the margins; internodes and pedicels cuneate, ciliate.
* Sessile spikelets lanceolate, laterally compressed, 4-6 mm long; callus pilose, base obtuse. Lower glume linear, coriaceous, keeled dorsally with surface deeply depressed, keels scabrous near the tip; upper glume linear, chartaceous, with an awn of 0-3 mm long. Lemmas oblong, hyaline; upper lemma incised half of lemma length with geniculate awn of 1-2 cm long from a sinus, column twisted, glabrous. Pedicelled spikelets lanceolate, dorsally compressed, 3.5-6 mm long; glumes chartaceous, scaberulose, glabrous, acute and muticous or mucronate.
Note: Difficult to distinguish from A. canaliculatus Schumacher, perhaps to be treated as a var. (FTEA: 783).