Pflanzenw. Ost-Afrikas, C: 114 (1895).- Type: Hildebrandt 2675, Kenya (iso- K).
Regional litterature: FTEA: 201 (1974); Fl. Ethiopia & Eritrea 7: 113, fig (1995); Fl Zambesiaca 10,2: 63 (1999); Pl. Sudan & S Sudan: 129 (2015).
Description:
* Slender, densely tufted perennial, the basal sheaths becoming fibrous with age. Culms 12-60 cm. high, erect. Leaves filiform, 6-15 cm. long, hispid.
* Inflorescence an ovate panicle of 1-10 cm long, the spikelets shortly, usually flexuously, pedicelled in clusters at the tips of the primary branches, these typically bare in the lower two-thirds, glabrous to long-pilose and ending in a slender bristle.
* Spikelets 4-10-flowered, broadly ovate-oblong, 2.5-6 mm long, dark green with grey hairs, breaking up from the apex, the rhachilla fragile. Glumes lanceolate, subequal, 1.5-4.5 mm long, usually pilose but varying from glabrous to coarsely tuberculate, acute. Lemmas ovate-elliptic, 2-3.3 mm long, pubescent to pilose near the margin and sometimes also on the back, rarely glabrous, broadly obtuse to acute; palea long-ciliate on the keels with tubercle-based hairs 0.7-1.5 mm long; anthers 3, 0.8-2 mm long. Caryopsis narrowly ellipsoid, 1.3 mm. long.
Distribution West Africa: South Sudan.
Distribution world-wide: Ethiopia, Uganda, DRC and E and southern Africa.