FWTA 2: 516 (1936).- Type: Barter 877, Nigeria (holo- K).
SYNONYMS
Eragrostis fluviatilis A. Chev., Bull. Mus. Natl. Hist. Nat. 2, 20: 472 (1948).- Type: Chevalier s.n., Liassele, Ivory Coast (holo- P ; iso- K).
Regional litterature: Kew Bull. 1936: 311 (1936); FWTA: 390 (1972) Ghana grasses: 150 (1977); Gram. Togo: 212 (1983); Gram. Cameroun: 134, fig. 29 (1992); Poac. CI: 132, fig. (1995); Pl. Burkina Faso: 86 (2012); Fl. Chad (2013).
Description:
* Well branched robust woody perennial, sometimes erect and up to 1 m tall, but usually borne down by the floods so culms root at nodes and function like stolons with shoots, roots very strong and tenacious. Leaves narrowly linear, rolled inwards, glabrous, 15-25 cm long and up to 4 mm broad with scabrid margins, hairy in the axils; ligule a fringe of hairs; sheath glabrous, compressed and keeled, the lower ones without blades.
* Inflorescence an ovate elliptical lax panicle of 15-25 cm long and 6-10 cm wide; branches up to 15 cm long, ascending; fascicles from the slightly hairy nodes with widely spaced spikelets.
* Spikelets linear, flat, yellow to grey-green often violet tinged, 8-16 mm long and 2-3 mm wide, loose. Glumes lanceolate, 1-2.2 mm long, early falling off. Lemmas lanceolate to ovate, 2.2-3.2 mm long, membranous, keeled in side view, acute at the tip when flattened, thinly chartaceous, sometimes with short straight hairs on the excurrent mid nerf; palea 2 mm long. Caryopsis slightly striate, elliptical, brown, 0.8 mm long and 0.5 mm wide.
Note: Closely related to E. atrovirens and might be an ecotype.
Distribution West Africa: Senegal, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Mali, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Togo, Benin, Niger, Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad.
Distribution world-wide: DRC and Congo.