.Stirp. Rar. 1, t. 1 (1791).- Type: König sn, India (holo- BM).
Regional litterature: FWTA: 476 (1972); Ghana grasses: 172 (1977); FTEA : 746 (1982); Gram. Togo: 239, fig. (1983); Fl. Mauritania: 416 (1991); Poac. CI : 508, fig. (1995) ; Poac. Niger : 546, fig. (1999); Pl. Vasc. Guiné-Bissau: 168 (2006); Fl. Guinea Bissau: 138 (2008); Fl. Guinée: 463 (2009); Pl. Burkina Faso: 94 (2012).
Description:
* Lax well branched annual up to 1 m, erect and prop-rooted or, usually straggling rooting at lower nodes and geniculate ascending. Culms with nodes bearded with short white hairs. Leaves linear-lanceolate, 5-30 cm long and 3-15 mm wide flat and soft, fine hairy at both surfaces, with a pale fine midrib and scabrid or cutting margins; base rounded, sometimes narrowed, ending in a very short false petiole; ligule a pinkish eciliate membrane with hairy margins; sheath somewhat hairy, esp. towards the apex.
* Inflorescence composed of terminal and axillary racemes. Racemes paired, appressed back to back, 6-9 cm long, yellow spikes with green spikelet-tips; rhachis fragile, angular, ciliate on margins; internodes cuneate, 3.5 mm long, flat and forming V shape with the pedicel in rear view, tip transverse, cupuliform. Spikelets in pairs, fertile spikelets sessile, sterile spikelets pedicelled. Pedicels cuneate, ciliate.
* Sessile spikelets yellow and green ovate, 4-5 mm long; callus base obtuse, inserted. Lower glumes ovate, coriaceous, much thinner above, keeled laterally, convex, transversely rigid, rough below; upper glume lanceolate, chartaceous. Lower lemma of sterile floret lanceolate, membranous; upper lemma lobed with a geniculate awn from the sinus, 1.5-2 cm long and a twisted glabrous column. Pedicelled spikelets well-developed or rudimentary, 2-6 mm long. Glumes chartaceous, muticous.
Distribution West Africa: Introduced in Mauritania, Senegal, Gambia, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Mali, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Togo,
Distribution world-wide: South and East Asia; introduced in Latin America.