Description :

• Annual or perennial, tufted or decumbent, sometimes stoloniferous
• Leaf blade expanded; ligule a fringed membrane to a fringe of hairs
• Inflorescence of 2-many or solitary, 1-sided racemes, scattered alternately on a central axis; rachis 3-angled or flat; spikelets solitary or paired, more rarely in clusters of 3 or 4; pedicels often reduced to disc-tipped stumps; lower glume turned away from rachis (abaxial)
• Spikelet dorsiventrally compressed, plano-convex, ovate or lanceolate, falling entire at maturity; glumes unequal, dissimilar, awnless; lower glume usually shorter than spikelet, 3-5-nerved; upper glume as long as spikelet, 5-11-nerved
• Florets 2; lower floret male or sterile; lemma 5-7-nerved, resembling upper glume, awnless; palea almost as long as lemma or reduced, 2-keeled; upper floret bisexual; lemma shorter than spikelet, firmer than glumes, indurated, entire, rounded at apex, margins inrolled and clasping only edges of palea, rugose, faintly 5-7-nerved, mucronate or awned; awn scabrid, straight, shorter than spikelet; palea obtuse, almost as long as and same texture as lemma, 2-keeled
• Lodicules 2, small, cuneate
• Stamens 3
• Ovary glabrous; styles plumose
• Caryopsis broadly ellipsoid to subrotund, dorsiventrally compressed
• x = 7, 9, 15 (polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

• Urochloa P.Beauv.
  • Palisot de Beauvois: 52 (1812)
  • Stapf: 384 (1898)
  • Stapf: 586 (1920)
  • Chippindall: 380 (1955)
  • Clayton & Renvoize: 600 (1982)
  • Clayton & Renvoize: 284 (1986)
  • Webster: 228 (1987)
  • Clayton: 79 (1989)
  • Gibbs Russell et al.: 350 (1990)
  • Watson & Dallwitz: 991 (1994)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global : Species ± 12
• Southern Africa : Species 6, widespread