Description :

• Annual or perennial, tufted, sometimes rhizomatous
• Leaf blade linear, expanded or rolled; ligule a fringe of hairs
• Inflorescence of many 1-sided, spike-like racemes on a long central axis; racemes solitary or whorled, sometimes stiff, spreading, straight or curved like a herringbone; spikelets solitary, shortly pedicelled
• Spikelet 3-10 mm long, laterally compressed, disarticulating above glumes and variously between florets; glumes very unequal, similar, shorter than spikelet, coriaceous, acute or acuminate, keeled, 1-nerved, awnless; lower glume ± half as long as upper
• Florets 4-11, bisexual, sometimes uppermost reduced, decreasing in size upwards; lemma similar in texture to glumes, membranous, lanceolate or ovate-lanceolate, 3-nerved, glabrous, entire, acute, acuminate or minutely awned; callus 0; palea shorter than lemmas, acute, 2-keeled, similar in texture to lemma
• Lodicules 2, minute, delicate, glabrous
• Stamens 3
• Ovary glabrous; styles distinct, plumose
• Caryopsis ellipsoid to fusiform
• x = 10 (7) (polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

• Pogonarthria Stapf
  • Stapf: 316 (1898)
  • Stent: 295 (1924)
  • Chippindall: 184 (1955)
  • Launert: 303 (1966)
  • Launert: 152 (1970)
  • Phillips: 267 (1974)
  • Clayton & Renvoize: 220 (1986)
  • Gibbs Russell et al.: 272 (1990)
  • Watson & Dallwitz: 756 (1994)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global : Species 4, Africa
• Southern Africa : Species 3, widespread, not recorded from Western Cape