FTA 9: 199 (1919).- Type: Schweinfurth 4271, South Sudan (type- K).
Andropogon schweinfurthii Hack., Flora 68: 118 (1885).
Regional description: FWTA: 481 (1972); Ghana grasses: 229 (1977); Gram. Togo: 307 (1983); Gram. Cameroun: 460, fig. 101 (1992); Fl. Bénin: 241 (1992); Poac. CI: 534, fig. (1995) ; Pl. Burkina Faso: 111 (2012); Pl. Sudan & S Sudan: 145 (2015).
Description:
* Densely tufted erect perennial bunchgrass, up to 1.5 m high, often forming a close dense sward. Culms slender, ovate, often reddish purple. Leaves long narrowly linear, 15-30 cm long and 1-3 mm broad, flat to folded when mature, glabrous and often glaucous; base sometimes sparsely hairy, barely rounded and passing straight into the sheath; ligule a short eciliate membrane; sheath glabrous, basal ones often somewhat compressed. Roots fine, wiry and invariably black.
* Inflorescence compound, paniculate, on fine branches from the upper culms bearing terminal and axillary racemes subtended by a linear spatheole of 3-5 cm long. Racemes single, slender, glabrous, purplish, 3-8 cm long; rhachis fragile, glabrous or pubescent; internodes linear, 2.5-3.5 mm long; tip cupuliform. Spikelets appressed, in pairs. Pedicels linear, 2.5-3.5 mm long.
* Sessile spikelets lanceolate, dorsally compressed, 6 mm long; callus obtuse, pubescent. Lower glume lanceolate, chartaceous, laterally 2-keeled, glabrous; upper glume lanceolate, membranous. Lower lemma oblong, 5 mm long, hyaline; upper lemma lanceolate, hyaline; apex incised 0.3-0.5 of length with geniculate awn of 16-20 mm long, column twisted, glabrous. Pedicelled spikelet well-developed, lanceolate, dorsally compressed, 6 mm long; glumes chartaceous, muticous.
Distribution West Africa and world-wide: Mali, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Togo, Benin, Nigeria, Cameroon, South Sudan.