Gra. Austr. 4: 15 (1809).- Type: Baeck, Italy (holo- LINN).
Eragrostis poaeoides P. Beauv., Ess. Agrostogr. 162 (1812), invalid.
Regional litterature: FTEA: 234 (1974); Fl. Mauritania: 454 (1991); Fl. Ethiopia & Eritrea 7: 121, fig (1995); Pl. Mauritanie: 283 (1998); Pl. Sudan & S Sudan: 130 (2015).
Description:
* Slender, loosely tufted annual of 6-60 cm long. Culms geniculately ascending. Leaves 3-12 cm long and 1-5 mm wide; margins glandular or eglandular; glands wart-like (on keel); ligule a fringe of hairs.
* Inflorescence an open ovate panicle, 4-20 cm long; branches stiff, eglandular or glandular. Spikelets solitary, pedicelled. Pedicels oblong, 1-3 mm long, eglandular or glandular.
* Spikelets comprising 6-16(-40) fertile florets, oblong, 3-15 mm long and 1.3-2 mm wide; rhachilla persistent, retaining paleas. Glumes deciduous, similar, ovate, 1-1.7 mm long, eglandular or glandular, keeled, 1-3 -veined, acute. Lemma ovate or orbicular, 1.5-2 mm long, chartaceous, yellow or grey purple, glandular on the keel, 3 –veined, obtuse; palea keels scabrous. Apical florets underdeveloped. Anthers 3, 0.3 mm long. Caryopsis oblong, 0.7-0.8 mm long, dark brown.
Distribution West Africa: Mauritania, Senegal, Sudan.
Distribution world-wide: Algeria, Egypt, Ethiopia and warm temperate and subtropical regions of the Old World, NE and E Africa; introduced in the Americas.