FTA 9: 242 (1919).- Type: Barter 936, Nigeria (holo- K)
Andropogon apricus Trin. var. africanus Hack., Monogr. Phan. 6: 457 (1889).
Regional litterature: Fl. Agr. Congo Belge 1: 132, fig. 10 (1929); Fl. Gabon 5:166 (1968); FWTA: 486 (1972); Ghana grasses: 95 (1977) ; FTEA : 778 (1982) ; Gram. Togo: 146, fig (1983); Fl. Mauritania: 4438(1991); Gram. Cameroun: 434 (1992); Poac. CI: 558, fig. (1995); Pl. Mauritanie: 309 (1998); Poac. Niger : 578, fig. (1999); Fl. Bénin: 181 (2006); Fl. Guinea Bissau: 133 (2008); Fl. Guinée: 450 (2009); Pl. Burkina Faso: 69 (2012); Fl. Chad (2013)
Description:
* Annual erect bunchgrass, 0.5-1.5 m high. Culms pinkish yellow, often with prop-rooted nodes. Leaves narrow lineair, 8-40 cm long and 1-5 mm wide, glabrous, tapering into fine filiform point and narrow base; ligule a pinkish, ciliate membrane fused with the pointed auricles; sheath glabrous. Roots a fine dense mat.
* Inflorescence a spathate panicle on the upper culms with many ascending flowering branches, 20-30 cm long, composed of terminal and axillary paired racemes, subtended by large pink-tinged spatheoles, exserted or embraced at the base by a subtending leaf. Spatheole linear or lanceolate, 5 cm long, papery. Racemes 2-4 cm long; rhachis fragile, internodes and pedicels 3-4 mm, oblong or cuneate, ciliate.
* Sessile spikelets linear, laterally compressed, 5-6 mm long (- 8 mm); callus pilose, base obtuse. Lower glume linear, coriaceous, keeled dorsally with surface deeply depressed, glabrous; upper glume linear, chartaceous with an awn 8-16 mm long. Lemmas oblong, hyaline; upper lemma with geniculate awn from the sinus of 30-50 mm long with twisted glabrous column. Pedicelled spikelets elliptic, dorsally compressed, 4-6 mm long; glumes membranous, glabrous to villous; both glumes with 5-12 mm long awn.