Fl. Agrost. Congo Belge 1: 171 (1929).- Type: Quarré 199, DRC (holo- BR, iso- P)
Regional litterature: FTEA: 799 (1982); Fl. Ethiopia & Eritrea 7: 340, fig (1995); Pl. Sudan & S Sudan: 134 (2015).
Description:
* Tufted perennial of 1-2 m high; sheaths at the base of the plant usually white-pubescent, sometimes glabrous, rarely tomentose. Leaves up to 40 cm long and 5 mm wide, rigid, glaucous, harsh; ligue a glabrous light brown membrane of 1.5 mm long; sheaths glabrous, the lower ones hairy.
* Inflorescence a narrow moderately dense false panicle of 30 cm long. Spatheoles 3-5 cm long, linear, russet coloured; peduncles flexuous, a little longer than the spatheoles, with spreading white tubercle-based hairs above. Racemes 1.5-2 cm long, 6-10-awned per pair, white-hirsute, terminally exserted, at least some of them deflexed; internodes 2-3 mm long; raceme-bases unequal, the superior 2-3.5 mm long, hirsute, sometimes with a few stiff bristles or sometimes glabrous. A single pair of homogamous spikelets at the base of the inferior raceme or of both racemes.
* Sessile spikelets 4.5-5.5 mm long; callus 0.7-1.2 mm long, linear to narrowly cuneate. Lower glume narrowly lanceolate, pubescent to villous with white hairs. Upper lemma linear, hyaline, 2-fid with a geniculate awn of 1.8-3.6 cm long in the sinus, the column pubescent with hairs of 0.2-0.5 mm long. Pedicelled spikelets 5-7 mm long, linear-lanceolate, pubescent to white villous, acute and muticous at the apex; pedicel-tooth 0.1-0.5 mm long, subulate. Homogamous spikelets similar to the pedicelled spikelet.
Distribution West Africa: Nigeria, CAR, Sudan.
Distribution world-wide: DRC, Eritrea, E and southern Africa.