FTA 9: 356 (1919).- Type: Welwitsch 2955, 2956, Angola (syn- LISU); Welwitsch 3000, 7190, 7248, Angola (isosyn- K).
Cymbopogon welwitschii Rendle, Cat. Welw. 2: 157 (1899);
Hyparrhenia gracilescens Stapf, FTA 9: 357 (1919).- Type: Chevalier 20196, Guinea (syn- K); Dalziel 292, Nigeria (syn- K).
Regional litterature: Fl. Gabon 5: 187 (1962); Fl. Nigeria: 99 (1970); FWTA: 494 (1972); Ghana grasses: 165 (1977); FTEA: 813 (19782) ; Gram. Cameroun: 490 (1992) ; Poac. CI: 598, fig. (1995); Fl. Zambesiaca : 127 (2002) ; Fl. Bénin: 212 (2006); Fl. Guinée: 462 (2009); Pl. Burkina Faso: 93 (2012); Fl. Chad (2013); Pl. Sudan & S Sudan: 134 (2015).
Description: Coarsely tufted prop-rooted annual of 0.5-3 m high. Culms slender to stout, the nodes often conspicuously bearded with orange-yellow hairs, strongly prop-rooted from the lower nodes. Leaves long linear, 30-60 cm long and 6-13 mm wide, flat and glabrous with a prominent midrib, margins scabrid; base narrowed and passing straight into the sheath; ligule a large, rounded membrane of 2-3 mm long, continuous with auricles of the sheath; sheaths slightly compressed and keeled, glabrous. Roots well developed.
* Inflorescence a large loose and leafy open panicle of 30-60 cm long, on flowering branches with numerous conspicuously spatheolate deflexed paired racemes. Peduncle 2.5-4 cm long, pilose with whitish or long stiff orange-yellow hairs of 5-7 mm long. Spatheoles lanceolate, 3-5 cm long, membranous, glabrous. Racemes 1.2-1.7 cm long, 3-awned per pair; rhachis fragile, ciliate on margins; raceme-bases flattened, sub equal, 1-1.5 mm long, stiffly setose, extended into an oblong appendage of 0.5-1 mm long. One pair of homogamous spikelets at the base of the lower raceme and none in upper raceme.
* Sessile spikelets linear or oblong, 5-7 mm long; callus cuneate, 1.5 mm long, pubescent. Glumes grey, without keels, coriaceous, glabrous or pubescent with white hairs. Upper lemma linear, membranous, with geniculate awn of 4-8 cm long with twisted and densely hairy column. Pedicelled spikelets lanceolate, 6-8 mm long with a 2-11(- 14) mm long awn. Homogamous spikelets lanceolate, sterile, 7-10 mm long, glabrous.
Distribution West Africa: Guinea, Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Benin, Nigeria, Cameroon, CAR, Chad, South Sudan.
Distribution world-wide: Congo, Uganda; C, E and southern Africa.