Fl. Atlant, 1: 67 (1798).- Type: Linneus, France (holo- LINN).
Alopecurus monspeliensis Linn., Sp. Pl. 61 (1753).
Regional litterature: Fl. Zambesiaca 10,1: 84, fig (1971); FWTA: 374 (1972); Fl. Sahara: 173 (1977); Fl. Mauritania: 424, fig (1991); Fl. Ethiopia & Eritrea 7: 44, fig (1995); Pl. Mauritania: 274 (1998); Poac. Niger: 121 (1999); Fl. Chad (2013); Pl. Sudan & S Sudan: 143 (2015).
Description:
* Annual in tufts or solitary shoots, up to 80 cm high; culms slender, erect or ascending. Leaves flat, often slightly glaucus, 5-20 cm long and 2-8 mm broad, rigid, with scabrid margins; sheaths glabrous, scabrid; ligule membranous, 3-15 mm long, often lacerate; sheaths somewhat inflated, smooth.
* Inflorescence in a dense spike-like panicle of 1.5-16 cm long and 1.5-3.5 cm wide, more or less lobed, pale green and thickly clothed by yellow bristles. Distal proportion of the pedicel attached to the spikelet.
* Spikelets uniflore, narrowly oblong, 2-3 mm long; rhacheole articulated between the glumes and the floret. Glumes elliptic, puberulous in the upper part, emarginated with a long scabrid awn of 4-7 mm long. Lemma obovate, half of the glume length, smooth, truncate, the nerves excurrent, the central one in a short subule of 1-2 mm long. Caryopsis 1 mm long, reddish brown.
Distribution West Africa: Cape Verde, Mauritania, Niger (Aïr), Chad, Sudan.
Distribution world-wide: Western Sahara, Morocco, Algeria, Tunesia, Libya, Egypt, Ethiopia and NE and E Africa, Europe and Asia. Introduced in Australia and the Americas.