J. Bot. 19: 107 (1905).- Type: Pobeguin 495, Guinea (holo- P; iso- K).
Regional litterature: FTEA: 25 (1970); FWTA: 367 (1972); Ghana grasses: 172 (1977); Gram. Togo: 240, fig. (1983); Gram. Cameroun: 48, fig. 9 (1992) ; Poac. CI: 88, fig. (1995); Pl. Vasc. Guiné-Bissau: 168 (2006); Fl. Guinea Bissau: 138 (2008); Fl. Guinée: 463 (2009); Pl. Burkina Faso: 94 (2012); Fl. Chad (2013); Pl. Sudan & S Sudan: 135 (2015)
Description:
* Annual or perennial bunchgrass rising from a short rhizome, 0.3-1.2 m high; base purplish. Culms slender and erect, sometimes arching over and rooting at the nodes; nodes shortly pubescent. Leaves linear to linear-lanceolate, glabrous, 5-30 cm long and 2-5 mm broad with a scabrid margin; base barely, sometimes unequally rounded; ligule an asymmetric toothed membrane of 2.5-3 mm long; sheath glabrous.
* Inflorescence a delicate spreading erect panicle of 7-25 cm long. Branches 4-10 cm long, thin and the upper half wiry with spikelets close together; pedicels hair-like, scabrid.
* Spikelets ovate-elliptic, 2-2.5 mm long and 0.9-1.2 mm wide, light green, purplish-red tinged, puberulous. Lemmas awnless, hairs on lemma and palea curved almost to a semicircle, muticous; keel of palea ciolate. Anthers 6, creamy; stigmas 2.
Distribution West Africa: Senegal, Guinea Bissau, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Togo, Nigeria, Cameroon, CAR, Chad, South Sudan.
Distribution world-wide: Uganda.