Not. 3, Index 12 (1851).- Type: Bangladesh.
Ischaemum cuspidatum Roxb., Fl. Ind.: 325 (1820);
Vossia procera Wall. & Griff., Journ. Asiat. Soc. Bengal 5: 573 (1836) nom superfl.;
Vossia cuspidata Griff, var. polystachya Koechlin, Bull. Soc. Bot. de France, 108: 5-6 (1961).
Regional litterature: FTA 9: 41 (1917); Fl. Gabon 5: 118 (1962); Fl. Nigeria: 111,fig. 57 (1970); FWTA: 502 (1972); Fl. Mauritania: 417, fig (1991); Gram. Cameroun: , fig. (1992); Fl. Bénin: (1995); Poac. CI: 638, fig. (1985); Fl. Ethiopia & Eritrea 7: 361, fig (1995); Pl. Mauritanie: 310 (1998); Poac. Niger : 630, fig. (1999) ; Fl. Zambesiaca 10,4: 164, fig (1999); Pl. Burkina Faso: 119 (2012); Fl. Chad (2013); Pl. Sudan & S Sudan: 151 (2015).
Description:
* Coarse mat-forming perennial with spongy floating or submerged culms of up to several meters long, rooting copiously at the nodes and sending up culms to 1 m long with a diameter of 1-2 cm. Leaves long stiff linear and drooping, up to 1 m long and 2.5 cm broad, flat and glabrous with a conspicuous broad white midrib and sharp cutting margins; base passing straight into the sheath, collar dark; ligule a hairy fringe, densely haired behind; sheath glabrous. Floating culms with big internodal air spaces and copious roots, floating or anchored.
* Inflorescence up to 30 cm long of 2-8 coarse, subdigitate ascending racemes along a common rachis of 5-6 cm long. Racemes sub cylindrical, 10-30 cm long; internodes 6-9 mm and pedicels 5-6 mm
* Spikelets narrowly ovate, 20-40 mm long with flattened awns. Lower glume 2-4 cm long, the body 6-8 mm long and yellowish, the tail a stiff, minutely toothed green awn of 1.5-3 cm long; upper glume boat-shaped, chartaceous and muticous. Pedicelled spikelet smaller than the sessile spikelet.
Distribution West Africa: Mauritania, Senegal, Gambia, Sierra Leone, Mali, Ivory Coast, Burkina faso, Ghana, Benin, Niger, Nigeria, Cameroon, CAR, Chad, Sudan, South Sudan.
Distribution world-wide: Egypt, Gabon, Congo, DRC, Uganda, NE, C, E and southern Africa, Asia.