Hooker’s Icon. Pl.25, t. 2448 (1896).- Type: Burmann, India (missing from LINN).
Uniola mucronata Linn., Sp. Pl. ed. 2,1: 104 (1762).
Regional litterature: FTEA: 183 (1974); Fl. Ethiopia & Eritrea 7: 94, fig (1995); Fl. Zambesiaca 10,2: 39, fig (1999); Pl. Sudan & S Sudan: 131 (2015).
Description:
* Tough tufted stoloniferous perennial of up to 1 m high; spreading stolons rooting to form dense tussocks; roots thick. Culms rigid, woody, branching to form fascicles at the nodes. Leaves up to 45 cm long and 4 mm wide, narrowly linear to setaceous, flat or involute, stiff, glaucous.
* Inflorescence a stiff panicle of 10-40 cm long, linear to narrowly lanceolate, with ascending racemes of 3-8 cm long.
* Spikelets lanceolate to ovate, 12-26 mm long, 8-25-flowered. Glumes narrowly lanceolate, , narrowly ovate, coriaceous, acute. Lemmas lanceolate to oblong-lanceolate, asperulous to minutely hairy, 6-9 mm long, asperulous, acute and shortly mucronate, the basal tuft of hair half as long as the lemma.
Distribution West Africa: Sudan (single collection seen from Hala’ib, but likely to occur along the Red Sea coast of Sudan proper too).
Distribution world-wide: Egypt, NE and E Africa, Mozambique, W and S Asia.