in Miq., Plant Jungh. 395 (1854).- Type: Swartz, Jamaica (holo- S).
Andropogon brevifolius Sw., Prod. Veg. Ind. Occ. 26 (1788);
Andropogon flaccidus A. Rich., Tent. Fl. Abyss. 2: 852 (1851);
Schizachyrium brevifolium var. flaccidum (A.Rich.) Stapf, FTA 9: 188 (1917);
Andropogon minimus Elliot.- Type: Scott Elliot 4187b, Sierra Leone (holo- BM);
Schizachyrium fasciculatum Jacq.-Fél., Rev. Bot. Appl. 33: 434 (1953).- Type: Jacques-Félix 1337, Guinée (iso- K);
Schizachyrium minutum Gledhill, Bol. Soc. Brot. 41: 60 (1967).- Type: Gledhill 467, Sierra Leone (iso- K).
Regional litterature: FTA 9: 187 (1917); FWTA: 478 (1972); Ghana grasses: 226 (1977); FTEA: 754 (1982); Gram. Togo: 302 (1983); Fl. Mauritanie 2: 468 (1991); Gram. Cameroun: 452, fig. 99 (1992); Fl. Bénin: 239 (1992); Poac. CI: 518, fig. (1995); Fl. Ethiopia & Eritrea 7: 319, fig (1995); Pl. Mauritanie : 307 (1998); Poac. Niger : 554, fig. (1999); Fl. Zambesiaca 10,4: 82 (2002); Fl. Guinea Bissau: 142 (2008); Fl. Guinée: 475 (2009); Pl. Burkina Faso: 109 (2012); Fl. Chad (2013); Pl. Sudan & S Sudan: 144 (2015).
Description:
* Variable delicate, lax, well branched straggling annual, often creeping and rooting at the lower nodes, up to 0.75 cm tall. Culms weak, slender, ovate, pink, 1-2 mm diameter. Leaves at right angles from the culm, small short linear, 2-6 cm long, 1-7 mm wide, with an abruptly rounded or acute tip and rounded base, flat to half folded, glabrous with scabrid margins, drying dark pink; ligule a tiny membrane; sheath strongly compressed, keeled, glabrous. Roots fine and wiry.
* Inflorescence compound, scanty, composed of slender solitary terminal racemes subtended by a spatheole and embraced at the base by subtending leaf. Spatheoles linear. Racemes cylindrical, 1-2.5 cm long; rhachis fragile; internodes linear, tip cupuliform. Spikelets squeezed between internode and pedicel. Pedicels linear.
* Sessile spikelets lanceolate, laterally compressed, 2-4 mm long; callus obtuse, pilose. Lower glume lanceolate, coriaceous, keeled, glabrous or pilose; upper glume lanceolate, membranous, acuminate. Lemmas hyaline, the upper incised 0.9 of the length, muticous (rarely) or awned; awn geniculate, 7-12 mm long with twisted column. Pedicelled spikelets rudimentary, lanceolate, dorsally compressed, 1-1.5 mm long. Glumes reduced, chartaceous, 0.3-1.2 mm long with a 3-6 mm long awn.
Note: The spikelets are sometimes hairy (var flaccidus) but, particularly in Africa, such plants are intermingled with the commoner glabrous form.
Distribution West Africa: Senegal, Gambia, Guinea Bissau, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Mali, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Togo, Benin, Niger, Nigeria, Cameroon, CAR, Chad, Sudan, South Sudan.
Distribution world-wide: Gabon, Congo, DRC, Ethiopia, Uganda and E, southern Africa, Asia, Latin America.