Fl. Afr. Austr. III: 397 (1841).- Type: Hesse s.n., South Africa.
Poa curvula Schrad., in Goettt., Gelehrt. Anz. 1821:2073 (1821);
Eragrostis poa Stapf, Fl. Capensis 7: 605 (1900).
Regional litterature: FTEA: 243 (1974); Gram. Cameroun: 122 (1992); Fl. Ethiopia & Eritrea 7: 122 (1995); Fl. Zambesiaca 10,2: 144 (1999).
Description:
* Densely tufted perennial, 30-70 cm high with coriaceous, often yellowish basal sheaths, strongly ribbed and appressed silky hairy. Leaves narrow, usually convolute, filiform 25-35 cm long, with a flexuous setaceous tip.
* Inflorescence an open to contacted panicle of 6-15 cm long; lowermost branches verticillate, sparsely to densely hairy in the axils, up to 4 cm long.
* Spikelets linear, 4-13-flowered, 4-10 mm long and 1-1.5 mm wide, grey-green to dark grey, the rhachilla tough below with persistent pales and fragile above. Glumes lanceolate, acute, lower glume 2 mm long, upper glume 2.7 mm long. Lemmas ovate, 2-3 mm long, obtuse to subacute. Anthers 3, 0.8-1.2 mm long. Caryopsis ellipsoid, 0.7 mm long.
Note: An exceedingly variable grass sometimes partitioned into numerous varieties. The one feature above all others shared by the variants is the hard tough prominently ridged silky-pilose basal sheaths.
Distribution West Africa: Cameroon (introduced Bamenda).
Distribution world-wide: Ethiopia, DRC and Eritrea, E and southern Africa; introduced elsewhere.