Description :

• Perennial, rarely annual, tufted, sometimes rhizomatous, occasionally cushion-forming
• Leaf blade variable, often with few to many linear, tubercular, stalked or saucer-shaped glands, particularly on nerves and margins; ligule a fringe of hairs
• Inflorescence an open, contracted panicle or sometimes spike-like; spikelets solitary, pedicelled
• Spikelet 2-20 mm long, laterally compressed, disarticulating above glumes; glumes ± equal, as long as to longer than spikelet (excluding awns), similar, lanceolate, 1-nerved, 1-keeled, often glandular on keels, glabrous to puberulous all over, obtuse or acute or acuminate, usually awnless
• Florets 2, rarely 1 (occasionally with rudiments of a third), bisexual; lemma 1.5-8.0 mm long, similar in texture to glumes, membranous, rounded on back, hairy or glabrous, ± 7-9-nerved, 2-lobed, lobes awnless or awned; awn straight, shortly or partly fused to inner margin of lobe, central awn from between lobes or awnless, rarely only upper lemma awned; awn varying greatly in length, usually flat and twisted in lower part, geniculate, often longer than body of lemma; callus short, blunt, hairy; palea 2-keeled, bidentate apically, ± as long as lemma, membranous
• Lodicules 2, small
• Stamens 3
• Ovary oblong, glabrous; styles distinct, slender, plumose
• x = 7, 10, 13 (polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

• Pentaschistis (Nees) Spach
  • Spach: 164 (1846)
  • Stapf: 480 (1899)
  • Chippindall: 254 (1955)
  • Clayton & Renvoize: 174 (1986)
  • Gibbs Russell et al.: 253 (1990)
  • Linder & Ellis: 1 (1990)
  • Watson & Dallwitz: 709 (1994)
• Achneria Benth. & Hook.f.
  • Bentham & Hooker: 1158 (1883) not of P.Beauv. 72 (1812)
  • Stapf: 456 (1899)
• Poagrostis Stapf
  • Stapf: 760 (1900)
  • Chippindall: 272 (1955)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global : Species ± 65, mainly Africa, also in Madagascar
• Southern Africa : Species 56, mainly in mountainous areas, S Namibia, northern provinces of South Africa, Free State, KwaZulu-Natal, Lesotho, W Northern Cape and Western Cape