Boll. Reale Orto Bot. Palermo 9: 56 (1910).- Type: Thunberg s.n., South Africa (holo- C); Schimper 1400, Ethiopia (syn- STR; iso- BR,S).
Cynosurus paspaloides Vahl, Symb. Bot. 2: 21 (1791).
Regional litterature: FTEA: 177 (1974); Fl. Chad (2013).
Description:
* Loosely tufted perennial from a knotty rhizome, 0.2–0.8 m tall, Culms erect or geniculately ascending. Leaves flat or folded, 2–18 cm long and 2–5 mm wide, abruptly acute; sheaths flabellate, in bunches at the lower nodes, glabrous or sparsely hairy and scaberulous along the keels.
* Inflorescence of (3–)4–10(–15) erect or ascending racemes. Racemes golden to dark brown, 6-8 cm long.
* Spikelets golden to dark brown in colour, 1.7-2.2 mm long. Lower glume ovate, boat-shaped, 0.7–1.6 mm long, 1-nerved, sparsely scaberulous on the back; upper glume oblong-elliptic, 1–2 mm. long, 1-nerved, scaberulous, with an antrorsely scabrid awn 0.5–1.5 mm long. Fertile femma ovate 1.5–2.4 mm long, glabrous or sparsely pubescent, ciliate along the keel and side nerves, emarginate with membranous lobes, obtuse in side view, with or without a mucro up to 1 mm. long; sterile floret 1.2–1.5 mm long, truncate.
Distribution West Africa: Chad.
Distribution world-wide: Ethiopia, Uganda, DRC and NE, E and southern Africa, Oman, Yemen.