FTA 9: 434 (1919).- Type: Keller 136, Somalia, Laku (holo- W).
Panicum macroblepharum Hack., Mém. Herb. Boiss. 20: 7 (1900).
Regional litterature: FTEA: 646 (1982); Fl. Ethiopia & Eritrea 7: 254 (1995); Fl. Chad (2013); Pl. Sudan & S Sudan: 126 (2015).
Description:
* Perennial forming open tufts from a knotty rootstock, the basal sheaths more or less silky pubescent, of 0.15-1 m high. Culms wiry, ascending or arching into creeping stolons, many-noded, nodes shortly pilose to villous.
* Inflorescence composed of 2-11 digitate or subdigitate ascending racemes along an axis up to 3 cm long. Racemes 2-20 cm long, the spikelets paired on a triquetrous narrowly winged rhachis.
* Spikelets narrowly elliptic-oblong, 2.2-3.5 mm long, villous, the hairs slightly exceeding the spikelet and often purple-tinged. Lower glume a small ovate scale of 0.2-0.3 mm long; upper glume 2/3-3/4 as long as spikelet, 3-nerved, villous. Lower lemma as long as spikelet, 7-nerved, the nerves smooth, softly villous with copious spreading white hairs, occasionally intersperced with fine glassy bristles, the central interspaces noticeably glabrous and purplish, otherwise villous; upper lemma ellipsoid, grey or light brown.
Distribution West Africa: South Sudan.
Distribution world-wide: Ethiopia, Somalia.