Taxon 64: 458 (2015).- Type: Linton 193 Kenya, Nairobi, (holo- K).
Lintonia nutans Stapf, Hooker’s Icon. Pl. 30: t. 2949 (1911).
Regional litterature: FTEA: 302 (1974); Fl. Ethiopia & Eritrea 7: 159, fig (1995); Fl. Zambesiaca 10,1: 205 (1999); Pl. Sudan & S Sudan: 136 (2015).
Description:
* Tufted stoloniferous perennial of 25-75 cm high. Culms erect or decumbent. Leaves 5-22 cm long and 2.5-5 cm wide, usually glabrous; ligule a truncate eciliate membrane.
* Inflorescence digitate, composed of 2-4 (1-6) slender curving racemes. Racemes 4-11.5 cm long; rhachis subterete. Spikelets packing broadside to rhachis, regular, 2-rowed.
* Spikelets 4-10 flowered with reduced florets towards the tip, cuneate, 5.5-11 mm long, braking up above the glumes, not between lemmas, floret callus truncate. Lower glume narrowly lanceolate, 2-4.5 mm long, acuminate; upper glume 3.3-5.8 mm long, obtuse. Lemma broadly elliptic, 4.5-9 mm long, 7-11-nerved, the nerves thick, prominent, the outer confluent towards the base, hairy below between the veins, apex bifid with a subapical flexuous awn of 1-10 mm long, outwardly curving from a stout base, much shorter in the upper florets; palea 2-veined, pubescent.
Distribution West Africa: South Sudan.
Distribution world-wide: Ethiopia, Uganda and Somalia, E and southern Africa.