Kew Bull. 19: 451 (1965).- Type: Ankrah 20438, Ghana (holo- K).
Regional litterature: FWTA: 481, fig. 453 (1972); Ghana grasses: 227, fig. 81 (1977); Gram. Togo: 306 (1983); Fl. Bénin: 241 (2006); Poac. CI: 530, fig. (1995); Fl. Guinée: 476 (2009); Pl. Burkina Faso: 110 (2012).
Description:
* Loosely tufted erect annual bunchgrass, up to 2 m high. Culms pink, branching profusely, weak and easily crushed, 3-4 mm diameter, often prop-rooted from the lower nodes. Leaves long linear, flat to partially folded, scabrid and sparsely hairy towards the base; margins sharply scabrid, base sparsely hairy, passing directly into sheath; ligule a narrow ciliolate membrane of 2 mm long; sheaths glabrous towards the base, hairy towards the apex. Roots a fine whitish mat.
* Inflorescence compound, paniculate, 30-60 cm long with slender solitary terminal and axillary racemes, distinctly spatheolate when young. Spatheoles linear, 3 cm long, brown or purple; peduncles 1 cm long. Racemes single, cylindrical, 5-7 cm long; rhachis fragile, 0.75 mm wide, ciliate on margins; internodes cuneate, 6.5 mm long; tip crateriform, purplish. Spikelets squeezed between internode and pedicel, in pairs. Pedicels cuneate, 4 mm long, ciliate, tip lobed.
* Sessile spikelet linear, 7-8 mm long; callus oblong, 0.75 mm long, bearded, base obtuse. Lower glume linear, coriaceous, keeled, villous, hairy below, margins ciliate and apex bifid; upper glume lanceolate, membranous, 1-keeled, margins ciliolate. Lower lemma linear, 4 mm long, hyaline; upper lemma oblong, 2 mm long, hyaline, incised 0.9 of length with geniculate awn, 14-20 mm long, column twisted, 7 mm long, glabrous. Pedicelled spikelets well-developed, lanceolate, 4.5 mm long, ciliate on margins, bifid with 3-10 mm long awn.
Distribution West Africa and world-wide: Senegal, Gambia, Guinea, Mali, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Togo, Benin.