Nomencl. Bot. Ed. 2,1: 564 (1840).- Type: Dufour, Spain (holo- MTM, destr.).
SYNONYMS
Megastachya papposa Roem. & Schult., Syst. Veg. 2: 585 (1817).
Regional litterature: FTEA: 239 (1974); Fl. Sahara: 181 (1977); Fl. Ethiopia & Eritrea 7: 122, fig. 50 (1995); Fl. Chad (2013); Pl. Sudan & S Sudan: 130 (2015).
Description:
* Tufted perennial, often short lived,10-40 cm high, often forming a compact cushion of short glaucous leaves. Culms erect or ascending. Leaves flat or involute, 2-15 cm long and 1-2 mm wide, stiff, glaucous, a conspicuous circlet of hairs of 3 mm long at the junction of the blade and the sheath.
* Inflorescence an open ovate panicle, 3-10 cm long, very delicate with filiform divaricate branches and long slender pedicels, eglandular and dark gry spikelets.
* Spikelets 5-18-flowered, linear, 3.5-11 mm long and 1 mm wide, grey-green to purplish green, breaking up from the base, the rhachilla and paleas persistent. Glumes unequal, the lower a lanceolate hyaline scale 0.3-1 mm long, the upper ovate and 0.8-1.3 mm long. Lemmas broadly elliptic to rotund, 1.1-1.7 mm long, appressed to the rhachilla, obtuse; palea minutely scaberulous on the keels, persistent. Anthers 3, 0.1-0.2 mm long. Caryopsis oblong-ellipsoid, 0.6-1.2 mm long.
Note: Two forms are recognizable within E. papposa, the typical form with a large, open, eglandular panicle and a smaller form with a more compact panicle provided with yellow glandular patches along the main axis and with the spikelets borne on stouter pedicels which are usually shorter than the spikelets themselves.
Distribution West Africa: Chad, Sudan.
Distribution world-wide: Morocco, Algeria, Tunesia, Ethiopia, Uganda, NE and E Africa, Spain, southern Asia.