Rev. Gram. 361 (1830).- Type: Perrottet 897, Senegal (syn- P, G), Barter 993, Niger (syn- P, GH), Leprieur 30, Senegal (syn- P).
Regional litterature: FWTA: 505 (1972); Ghana grasses: 142 (1977); Gram. Togo: 206, fig. (1983); Fl. Mauritania: 408 (1991); Gram. Cameroun: 517 (1992); Poac. CI: 648, fig. (1985); Pl. Mauritanie: 311 (1998); Poac. Niger : 639, fig. (1999); Fl. Bénin: (2006); Fl. Guinea Bissau: 136 (2008); Pl. Burkina Faso: 84 (2012); Fl. Chad (2013).
Description:
* Erect slender annual bunchgrass, usually not branched, 0.3-0.6 m high. Culms often purplish, the nodes inconspicuously bearded with very soft stiff ascending white hairs. Leaves mostly basal, narrowly linear, usually folded, 5-7.5 cm long, 1-2 mm wide, aromatic, thin and glabrous with slightly scabrid margins; base passing directly into sheath; ligule a tiny toothed membrane; sheaths glabrous with sparse white hairs on the shoulders. Roots a fine dense fibrous mat.
* Inflorescence composed of exserted single racemes. Racemes cylindrical, 4-10 cm long; rachis fragile, glabrous; internodes linear, 1.5-2 mm long; tip oblique, flat; pedicels linear, flattened, ciliate.
* Sessile spikelets lanceolate or oblong, 4.5-5 mm long; callus cuneate, pubescent, base obtuse. Lower glume ovate, chartaceous, 2-keeled glabrous or stiff hairs on the midrib, marginal tufts of gleaming hair; apex attenuate into a seta, with tooth 2.5 mm long; upper glume lanceolate, membranous. Lemmas lanceolate, hyaline; apex dentate. Caryopse flattened on the back, 1.5 mm long. Pedicelled spikelets male, lanceolate, or ovate, dorsally compressed, 4 mm long; glumes chartaceous, keeled; both glumes with 2-3 mm long awn.
Distribution West Africa and world-wide: Mauritania, Senegal, Gambia, Guinea Bissau, Guinea, Mali, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Togo, Benin, Niger, Nigeria, CAR, Chad.