Description :

• Annual or perennial, tufted, sometimes rhizomatous or stoloniferous or mat-forming
• Leaf blade linear, flat, folded or rolled; ligule a short, inconspicuous, fringed membrane or a fringe of hairs
• Inflorescence a panicle, open, ovoid or pyramidal, or contracted, sometimes spike-like; branches, especially lowermost, whorled or not; spikelets subsessile or pedicelled
• Spikelet small, laterally to not noticeably compressed, disarticulating above glumes; glumes ± equal to unequal, shorter to longer than spikelet, 1-nerved, glabrous, keeled to keelless, awnless, upper glume not to slightly 1-keeled
• Floret 1, bisexual, rarely rudiment of a second floret present; lemma similar to upper glume, similar in texture to glumes, membranous, often shining, 1-3-nerved, entire, glabrous, awnless, occasionally with a subulate tip; palea 2-nerved, often grooved between nerves
• Lodicules 2, hyaline, truncate or 0
• Stamens 2 or 3
• Ovary often globose; styles free, plumose above
• Caryopsis globose to ellipsoid, rounded or truncate, with a thin pericarp that swells and becomes detached from seed when wet, forcibly ejecting seed
• x = 9, 10 (high polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

• Sporobolus R.Br.
  • Brown: 169 (1810)
  • Stapf: 578 (1900)
  • Stent: 247 (1927)
  • Chippindall: 209 (1955)
  • Launert: 176 (1970)
  • Clayton: 353 (1974)
  • Clayton & Renvoize: 224 (1986)
  • Gibbs Russell et al.: 304 (1990)
  • Baaijens & Veldkamp: 393 (1991)
  • Watson & Dallwitz: 897 (1994)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global : Species ± 160, tropical and warm temperate
• Southern Africa : Species 38, widespread