Annuario Reale Ist. Bot. Roma 8: 352 (1908 publ. 1907).- Type: Roxburgh painting nr. 2022, India (type- K).
Chloris tenella J.Koenig ex Roxb., Fl. Ind. 1: 330 (1820).
Regional litterature: FTEA: 348 (1974); Fl. Ethiopia & Eritrea 7: 161, fig (1995); Fl. Zambesiaca 10,2: 208, fig (1999); Pl. Sudan & S Sudan: 149 (2015)
Description:
* Slender tufted annual, or short-lived perennial 40-80 cm high; basal innovations flabellate. Culms erect or geniculately ascending; 4-6 -noded; nodes pallid. Leaves 10-24 cm long, 2-4 mm wide, attenuate; ligule a ciliolate membrane.
* Inflorescence composed of single or paired racemes. Racemes ascending, unilateral, 3-5(-8) cm long; rhachis angular. Spikelets packing broadside and 2-rowed to rhachis.
* Spikelets with (3-)4-5 fertile florets and reduced florets at the apex, cuneate, 4-6.5 mm long, disarticulating above glumes but not between florets, yellowish green with purple awns; callus pilose. Glumes persistent, membranous; lower glume lanceolate, 3-3.5(-6) mm long; upper glume lanceolate, 3.5-6(-9) mm long. Lemmas obovate, 4-6.5 mm long, coriaceous, keeled, 3 -veined; midvein and margins eciliate, acute, with a subapical awn of, 3-11 mm long; apical sterile florets (1-)2 in number, barren, in a clump, cuneate; sterile lemmas muticous. Caryopsis narrowly trigonous, laterally compressed.
Distribution West Africa: Sudan, South Sudan.
Distribution world-wide: Ethiopia, Uganda and NE, E and southern Africa, southern Asia.