Description :

• Annual or perennial, caespitose or decumbent, sometimes rhizomatous or stoloniferous
• Leaf blade expanded or folded, rarely rolled, sometimes pleated longitudinally, occasionally saggitate; ligule a fringed membrane or fringe of hairs
• Inflorescence a panicle, open or usually spike-like, then dense and cylindrical with branches reduced to stumps; spikelets solitary or clustered, shortly pedicelled or subsessile, each spikelet or cluster subtended by 1 to many bristles, these persist on axis after spikelet falls, bristles either shorter or longer than spikelet, scabrid, often coloured; spikelets when clustered usually not all fully developed
• Spikelet elliptic to oblong to ovate, compressed dorsiventrally, falling with glumes (not disarticulating in cultivated forms); glumes unequal, membranous, awnless; lower glume up to half as long as spikelet, ovate from clasping base, 3-6-nerved; upper glume a third up to as long as spikelet, 3-9-nerved
• Florets 2; lower floret male or sterile; lemma as long as spikelet, 5-7-nerved, rounded, flat, or longitudinally grooved dorsally, awnless; palea well developed or minute to 0; upper floret bisexual; lemma firmer than glumes, usually indurated, often finely or coarsely transversely rugose, more rarely smooth and glossy, glabrous, entire, margins inrolled and clasping only edges of palea, awnless; palea similar to lemma, relatively long
• Lodicules 2, broadly cuneate
• Stamens 3
• Ovary ellipsoid, glabrous; styles distinct, plumose above
• Caryopsis oblong or ellipsoid
• x = 9, 10 (high polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

• Setaria P.Beauv.
  • Palisot de Beauvois: 51 (1812) name conserved
  • Stapf: 419 (1899)
  • Chippindall: 338 (1955)
  • Launert: 170 (1970)
  • Clayton & Renvoize: 520 (1982)
  • Clayton & Renvoize: 290 (1986)
  • Clayton: 94 (1989)
  • Gibbs Russell et al.: 293 (1990)
  • Watson & Dallwitz: 867 (1994)
• Cymbosetaria Schweick.
  • Schweickerdt: t. 3320 (1936)
  • Chippindall: 355 (1955)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global : Species ± 110, tropics and subtropics
• Southern Africa : Species 18, widespread