Description :

• Annual or perennial, tufted
• Leaf blade linear, usually expanded, pointed; ligule an unfringed membrane, truncate
• Inflorescence open or contracted, composed of a number of racemes scattered along a central axis; racemes often stiff and straight, sometimes spreading; spikelets solitary, subsessile, biseriate, overlapping or distant
• Spikelet 3-14 mm long, laterally compressed, wedge-shaped, disarticulating above glumes and between florets; glumes ± equal, equal to longer than spikelet, similar, membranous, very narrow, 1-nerved, tapering to a mucro or awn; lower glume longer than lowest lemma
• Florets 3-many, lower floret bisexual; upper floret reduced; lemma similar in texture to glumes, membranous, rounded on back, 3-nerved, hairy, conspicuously ciliate along lateral nerves, incised, bluntly 2-lobed, awned from sinus; awn fine, bristle-like, shorter than body of lemma, straight; palea ± equalling lemma, often pilose between keels
• Lodicules 2, fleshy, glabrous
• Stamens 3
• Ovary obovoid, glabrous; styles distinct, plumose above
• Caryopsis narrow, dorsally flattened
• x = 10

Nomenclature:

• Trichoneura Andersson
  • Andersson: 148 (1855)
  • Stapf: 649 (1900)
  • Chippindall: 128 (1955)
  • Launert: 209 (1970)
  • Phillips: 296 (1974)
  • Clayton & Renvoize: 214 (1986)
  • Gibbs Russell et al.: 342 (1990)
  • Watson & Dallwitz: 962 (1994)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global : Species 7, Africa, Arabian Peninsula, Texas, United States of America
• Southern Africa : Species ± 2, widespread, not in Western Cape