Syn. Pl. Glumac. 1: 264 (1854).- Type : Koenig s.n., India (syn- BM).
Poa unioloides Retz., Observ. Bot. 5: 19 (1789).
Regional litterature: FWTA : 389 (1972); Gram. Cameroun: 131 (1992); Fl. Guinée: 460 (2009).
Description:
* Caespitose annual or short-lived perennial, 7-50 cm high. Culms geniculately ascending, or decumbent, rooting from lower nodes. Leaves 3-10 cm long and 2-5 mm wide; ligule a fringe of hairs
* Inflorescence an open elliptic panicle, 5-12 cm long, 2-6 cm wide; branches flexuous with secondary branching. Spikelets solitary, pedicelled; pedicels 2-10 mm long.
* Spikelets elliptic, light green, more or less purple, comprising 9-72 fertile florets, with reduced florets at the apex, ovate, 4-12 mm long and 2-3.4 mm wide, breaking up at maturity; rhachilla persistent, shedding paleas, internodes obscured by lemmas. Glumes deciduous, acute; lower glume lanceolate, 1.4 mm long, keeled, scabrous; upper glume ovate, 1.6 mm long and keeled, scabrous. Lemmas ovate, 1.3-1.8 mm long, membranous, red or purple, midvein scabrous, acute; palea keels scaberulous. Apical sterile florets resembling fertile though underdeveloped. Anthers 2, 0.3 mm long. Caryopsis with adherent pericarp, ovoid, 0.7 mm long.
Distribution West Africa: introduced in Guinea, Sierra Leone, Cameroon, CAR.
Distribution world-wide: Asia into Australia; introduced in the Americas.