Bot. Jahrb. Syst. 39: 600 (1907).- Type: Volkens 1156, Kenya (Type- B).
Regional litterature: FTEA: 110 (1970); Fl. Zambesiaca 10,1: 89, fig (1971); Fl. Ethiopia & Eritrea 7: 49, fig (1995); Pl. Sudan & S Sudan: 117 (2015).
Description:
* Densely tufted perennial perennial of 0.5-1.2 m tall. Culms usually erect, more rarely ascending from a shortly geniculate base, 2-4-noded, usually simple, smooth or scaberulous beneath the nodes. Leaves 3-25 cm long and 1-2 mm wide, expanded or sometimes involute, linear to almost setaceous, glabrous; sheaths fairly tight, smooth or scaberulous, the oldest persistent and often splitting into irregular fibres.
* Inflorescence a panicle of 5-25 cm long, ovate to elliptic in outline, usually effuse with flexuous branches, more rarely slightly contracted.
* Spikelets 3.5-4.5 mm long, oblong, green or often purplish, gaping at length; rhachilla extension usually produced beyond the floret, forming a basally hairy awn-like bristle, 1-3 mm long. Glumes 1-nerved (rarely the superior 3-nerved), subequal, lanceolate, membranous, acute to acuminate, keel scabrous, flanks minutely granular-scaberulous or very rarely smooth. Lemma 2-2.5(-3) mm long, thinly membranous, ovate-oblong to broadly elliptic, 5-nerved with the nerves excurrent into mucros up to 0.75 mm long, dorsally pilose, dorsally awned from near the base; awn geniculate, 4-7.5 mm long.
Distribution West Africa: South Sudan.
Distribution world-wide: Uganda, DRC and E and southern Africa.