Kew Bull. 1906: 357 (1906).- Type: Wight 1700, India (holo- K).
Andropogon citratus DC, Cat. Hort. Monsp. 78 (1813).
Regional litterature: FTA 9: 282 (1919); FI. Gabon 5: 175 (1962); FWTA: 482 (1972); Ghana grasses: 126 (1977); FTEA: 761 (1982); Gram. Togo: 184 (1983); Gram. Cameroun: 447 (1992); Poac. Niger : 568, fig. (1999); Fl. Bénin: 194 (2006); Fl. Guinea Bissau: 135 (2008); Fl. Guinée: 454 (2009); Fl. Chad (2013)
Description: Robust strongly aromatic perennial bunchgrass with leafy tussocks to about 0.6 m high. The woody cane-like culms, rarely blossoming, up to 2.4 m high. Leaves long linear, 45-90 cm long, 10-20 mm wide, tapering to a fine point and narrowing at the base, more-or-less glabrous with a pronounced white midrib and scabrid margins; base narrowed almost into a false petiole; ligule a brownish membrane; sheaths glabrous, the lower ones with a characteristic wavy bloom. Roots coarse and yellowish from a coarse rhizome.
* Reluctant to flower in cultivation. Inflorescence an open panicle, 30-60 cm long, composed of terminal and axillary paired racemes, each subtended by a narrow spatheole; bases flattened and sub equal. Racemes deflexed, 1-2.5 cm long; rachis fragile, villous with hairs 2-3 mm long; internodes linear. Basal spikelets 2 in lower raceme, 0 in upper raceme.
* Sessile spikelets linear or lanceolate, 5-6 mm long, 0.7 mm wide; callus pilose, base obtuse. Lower glume lanceolate, 2-keeled, flat or concave; upper glume lanceolate, 1-keeled, acute. Upper lemma lanceolate, hyaline,1-awned. Pedicelled spikelets elliptic, 4-4.5 mm long; glumes chartaceous, acute.
Distribution West Africa: Culture species, introduced in Senegal, Gambia, Guinea Bissau, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Benin, Chad.
Distribution world-wide: Introduced in DRC, Rwanda, Asia and Latin America.