Taxon 64: 460 (2015).- Type: India, Roxburg painting.
Chloris roxburghiana Schult., Flora 38 (1824).
Regional litterature: FTEA: 339 (1974); Fl. Ethiopia & Eritrea 7: 168, fig. (1995Fl. Zambesiaca 10,2: 208, fig (1999); Pl. Sudan & S Sudan: 123 (2015).
Description:
* Tufted perennial of 1-1.5 m high. Culms geniculately ascending or decumbent. Leaves flat or conduplicate, 10-40 cm long and 2-10 mm wide; ligule a ciliolate membrane; sheaths keeled.
* Inflorescence with numerous racemes borne along a central axis in a multilateral false spike. Racemes unilateral, 3-8 cm long with spikelets broadside packed to the rhachis.
* Spikelets with one fertile floret and reduced florets at the tip, cuneate, 1.5-2 mm long, disarticulating below the fertile floret; callus pilose, obtuse. Glumes membranous, 1-keeled, acute, lower 1-1.5 mm long; upper 2-2.8 mm long. Fertile lemma elliptic, 1.5-2 mm long, 1.5-2 mm long, cartiliganous, pallid, ciliate, 1-awned; awn subapical, 8-17 mm long; sterile florets 2-3 in number, barren, elliptic, each with a subapical awn. Anthers 3.
Distribution West Africa: South Sudan.
Distribution world-wide: Ethiopia, Uganda, DRC and NE, E and southern Africa, Arabia peninsular, India and Myamar.