Rev. Bot. Appl. Agric. Trop. 15: 1048 (1935).- Type: Schmidt s.n., Cape Verde (?).
Ctenium rupestre J.A. Schmidt, Beitr. Fl. Cap. Verd. Ins. 149 (1852).
Regional litterature: FWTA: 102 (1972); FTEA: 332 (1974); Fl. Ethiopia & Eritrea 7: 172, fig (1995); Pl. Mauritanie: 289 (1998); Poac. Niger: 277, fig. (1999); Pl. Burkina Faso: 80 (2012); Pl. Sudan & S Sudan: 129 (2015)
Description:
* Tufted perennial of 0.6-1,0 m high the basal buds clad in short white scales. Culms wiry, often bare below, leafy and much-branched. Leaves broadly linear, 5-19 cm long and 4-5 mm large, flat. sheaths rounded; ligule reduced into a line of short hairs; sheaths glabrous, rounded.
* Inflorescence a solitary raceme of 11-13 cm long, unilateral. Spikelets broadside to the rhachis and 2-rowed.
* Spikelets elliptic, 4.5-8 mm long, disarticulating below each floret, florets 2, sometimes 3, the lowermost floret fertile, the second sterile or male, the third (when present) much reduced; floret callus obtuse and barbed. Glumes lanceolate, membranous; lower glume 3.6-5 mm long, acuminate; upper glume 6.4-9 mm long, apex dentate. Fertile lemma 5.6-7.4 mm long, scabrid, dentate with an awn of fertile floret of 1-5 mm long; 2nd lemma 2.4-4.6 mm long, sterile, empty.
Distribution West Africa: Cape Verde, Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Sudan.
Distribution world-wide: Morocco, Ethiopia and NE, E and southern Africa.