Cat.Afr. Pl. 2: 234 (1899).- Type: Welwitsch 2961, Angola (holo- LISU, iso- BM).
Regional litterature: FWTA: 393 (1972); Ghana grasses: 153 (1977); Gram. Togo: 220 (1983); Gram. Cameroun: 125 (1992); Fl. Zambesiaca 10,2: 115 (1999); Pl. Vasc. Guiné-Bissau: 168 (2006); Fl. Guinée: 460 (2009).
Description:
* Tufted annual, sometimes branched near the base, 0.4-0.6 m high. Culms erect but often geniculately ascending, with dark nodes. Leaves linear, glabrous, 5-15 cm long and 2-3 mm broad with smooth margins; base rounded; ligule a narrow fringe of hairs; sheath glabrous but a few long hairs at the shoulders.
* Inflorescence an open elliptic panicle of 5-15 cm long, and 2-4 cm wide. Lower branches 2-3 cm long, straight; the spikelets uniformly distributed on filiform pedicels of 2-10 mm long.
* Spikelets pallid to purplish, flattened, elliptic, lighter in the center, 3-9 mm long and 1.5-2 mm wide, purplish, 7-30-flowered with a toothed outline and the rachilla well visible, persistent, retaining paleas; apical florets underdeveloped. Glumes lanceolate, deciduous; lower glume 1 mm, upper glume 1.5-1.8 mm long. Lemmas ovate, acute at the tip when flattened, 1.5-1.8 mm long, lateral veins visible, their tip free; paleas scaberulose on the keels. Caryopsis globular, 0.5 mm long.
Distribution West Africa: Gambia, Guinea Bissau, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ghana, Togo, Nigeria, Cameroon, CAR.
Distribution world-wide: Ethiopia, DRC, Congo and Tanzania and southern Africa.