Description :

• Annual, tufted, erect to prostrate
• Leaf blade linear, expanded or rolled, apex acute; ligule an unfringed membrane
• Inflorescence a single, slender, ± curved, rigid, cylindrical spike; spikelets sunk in and closely pressed to rachis, alternating on opposite sides of rachis; spikelets solitary, sessile
• Spikelet ± laterally compressed, falling with glumes and internodes of rachis at maturity; glumes ± equal, displaced side by side, similar, as long as spikelet, narrow, acute, glabrous, 3-5-nerved, thick and rigid, awnless
• Floret 1, bisexual; lemma almost as long as glumes, less firm in texture than glumes, thinly membranous, lanceolate to narrowly ovate, 3-nerved, lateral nerves short, awnless; palea almost as long as lemma, 2-nerved, keels wingless
• Lodicules 2
• Stamens 3
• Ovary glabrous, truncate; styles obsolete, plumose
• Caryopsis narrowly ellipsoid
• x = 7, 9, 19 (polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

• *Parapholis C.E.Hubb.
  • Hubbard: 14 (1946)
  • Chippindall: 73 (1955)
  • Tutin: 243 (1980)
  • Clayton & Renvoize: 111 (1986)
  • Gibbs Russell et al.: 243 (1990)
  • Watson & Dallwitz: 692 (1994)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global : Species 6, Europe and Asia
• Southern Africa : Species 1: * Parapholis incurva (L.) C.E.Hubb., naturalised, W Northern Cape and Western Cape