Kew Bull. 4: 374 (1949).- Type: Deighton 4666, Sierra Leone (holo- K, iso- BR,US).
Monocymbiun deightonii var. tonkouii Jacques-Félix, (Rev. Int. Bot. Appl. Agric. Trop.30 : 177 (1950).- Type: Jacques-Félix 1907, Mann, Tonkoui, Ivory Coast (holo- P).
Regional litterature: FWTA: 499 (1972); Poac. CI: 624, fig. (1985); Fl. Guinée: 466 (2009).
Description:
* Stoloniferous perennial of 0.3-0.6 m high. Culms weak, lodging on other grasses, rooting from the lower nodes, glabrous. Leaves lanceolate, flat, 2-5 cm long and 2-7 mm wide, rounded at the base, margins scabrous; ligule a short truncate membrane finely ciolate; sheaths glabrous.
* Inflorescence a narrow false panicle, loose and composed of isolated racemes, partly enclosed by the reddish cymbiformous spatheoles of 2 cm long, only the pedicelled spikelets exposed laterally. Racemes 1.5 mm long, the internodes and pedicels liniar, ciliate. Spikelets paires, the sessile fertile.
* Sessile spikelets elliptical, 4.5 mm long, with a callus shorter than broad, obtuse, ciliated at the margins. Glumes cartilaginous, the lower obtuse, spiny ciliate on the keels towards the tip, glabrous or villous, the upper boat-shaped, extended in a subule of 2 mm long. Upper lemma hyaline, bifid for half of its length, with ciliated lobes and a geniculate awn of about 15 mm long. Pedicelled spikelets similar but male and muticous.
Distribution West Africa and world-wide: Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ivory Coast.