Proc. Roy. Soc. Queensl. 80: 76 (1969).- Type: Jacques-Félix 208, Guinea, Kindia (iso- P).
Schizachyrium brevifolium var maclaudii Jacq. Fél., Rev. Bot. Appl. 33: 434 (1953).
Regional litterature: FWTA: 479 (1972); RI: 226 (1977); Gram. Cameroun: 453, fig. 99 (1992); Fl. Guinée: 476 (2009).
Description:
* Short branched reddish-purple annual bunchgrass, erect to ascending up to 0.5-0.6 m, sometimes rooting from the lower nodes. Leaves departing at a wide angle from the sheath, 2.5-6 cm long and 1.5-7 mm broad, short linear with an abruptly acute to rounded tip and a rounded base, usually folded, glabrous with slightly scabrid margins; ligule a ciliolate inconspicuous, white membrane; sheath glabrous, compressed and keeled. Roots a fine fibrous mat.
* Inflorescence compound, composed of solitary short cylindrical terminal spatheolate finely-awned racemes. Spatheoles enrolled, green, 2-2.5 cm long. Racemes green, 2- 3 cm long and 1 mm broad, partially enclosed by the spatheoles; rhachis fragile; internodes 2 mm long, broadly clavate, swollen, wider than the spikelet. Pedicels 1.5-2 mm long, linear to slightly swollen with white hairs. Spikelets in pairs, the sessile squeezed between internode and pedicel.
* Sessile spikelet lanceolate, dorsally compressed, glabrous, 3.5-5 mm long; callus glabrous or slightly barbed. Lower glume chartaceous, keeled to the base, linear to lanceolate, light green with green keels, sometimes bi-dentated; upper glume lanceolate, membranous. Upper lemma bifid almost to the base; awns kinked, 7-8 mm long, the dark base hardly emerging from the spikelet. Pedicelled spikelet represented by a single lanceolate glume, 1 mm long with 3-5 mm long awn.
Distribution West Africa: Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ghana, Nigeria, Cameroon.
Distribution world-wide: Gabon; introduced in South America.