Description :

• Annual or perennial, tufted
• Leaf blade linear, expanded, glabrous; ligule a fringed membrane to a fringe of long hairs
• Inflorescence a single, spike-like, terminal, cylindrical raceme, exserted from sheath; internodes stoutly linear to subclavate; rachis and pedicels hairy on either side with conspicuous woolly hairs; spikelets paired, secund, in long-short combinations: one sessile, the other pedicelled, pedicels free from rachis
• Sessile spikelet 9-15 mm long, usually ± laterally compressed, disarticulating with glumes; glumes ± equal, dissimilar; lower glume coriaceous, deeply grooved or flat on back, 2-lobed or not lobed, 2-keeled, narrowly winged towards apex, mucronate; upper glume boat-shaped, keeled upwards, produced into a long, fine bristle-like awn
• Florets 2; lower floret male; lemma hyaline, entire; palea well developed; upper floret bisexual; lemma less firm than glumes, hyaline, hairy or glabrous, 2-lobed, awned from sinus; awn geniculate, much longer than body of lemma, glabrous or hairy; callus obtuse, inserted in concave top of internode; palea well developed, lanceolate, hyaline
• Lodicules 2, fleshy, glabrous
• Stamens 3
• Ovary glabrous
• Caryopsis lanceolate-oblong, dorsiventrally compressed

• Pedicelled spikelet strongly dorsiventrally compressed, flat; lower glume usually distinctly nerved, male or sterile; lemma awnless
• x = 10 (17, 20)

Nomenclature:

• Sehima Forssk.
  • Forsskål: 178 (1775)
  • Stapf: 35 (1917)
  • Chippindall: 489 (1955)
  • Clayton & Renvoize: 749 (1982)
  • Clayton & Renvoize: 348 (1986)
  • Gibbs Russell et al.: 292 (1990)
  • Watson & Dallwitz: 862 (1994)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global : Species 7, Africa, India and Australia
• Southern Africa : Species 2: Sehima galpinii Stent from northern provinces of South Africa to N KwaZulu-Natal, and S. ischaemoides Forssk. in Grootfontein area of Namibia and in N Botswana