Bull. Soc. Bot. France 36: 250 (1889).- Type: Letourneux s.n., Sedada, Tunesia (holo- P, iso- MPU).
Regional litterature: FWTA: 408 (1972); Fl. Mauritanie 2: 471, fig. (1991); Fl. Ethiopia & Eritrea 7: 155 (1995); Pl. Mauritanie: 292, fig. (1998).
Description:
* Perennial forming tough cushions, 8-30 cm high. Culms erect, tough, almost woody at the base, much-branched, densely clothed in many imbricate leaf-sheaths. Leaves distichous, 2-3 cm long 1-3 mm wide, stiff, glaucous, the margins pectinate-setose near the ligule; ligule a fringe of hairs.
* Inflorescence a dense ovate erect panicle of 1.5-4 cm long, sparsely branched , spotted with glands, contracted about primary branches, these bare in the lower branch, glabrous in axils. Spikelets on stout pedicels, clustered in dense bunches at the end of the branches.
* Spikelets oblong lanceolate, 1.8-2 mm long, usually conspicuously scabrid or hirtellous, occasionally smooth. Glumes similar, ovate, hyaline, smooth, acute; lower glume 0.5 mm long; upper glume 1 mm long. Lemma ovate, 1.8-2 mm long, membranous, as long as spikelet, midvein thickened, smooth or scaberulous. Anthers 3, 0.7-1 mm long. Anthers (2-)3, 1-1.5 mm long. Caryopsis obovoid, 0.5 mm long.
Distribution West Africa: Mauritania.
Distribution world-wide: Tunesia, Ethiopia, Oman, Somalia, Yemen, Pakistan, Myamar.