Description :

• Annual or perennial, tufted or decumbent, rhizomatous, mostly aquatic
• Leaf blade expanded or rolled; ligule a narrow, fringed or unfringed membrane
• Inflorescence a panicle, usually spike-like, dense and cylindrical, rarely open; spikelets pedicelled
• Spikelet 1.3-4.5 mm long, almost spherical, laterally to dorsiventrally to not noticeably compressed, asymmetrical or gibbous; glumes very unequal, dissimilar, awnless, distinctly ribbed; lower glume shorter than spikelet, sometimes reduced to a small scale; upper glume as long as spikelet, usually gibbous or saccate at base, glabrous
• Florets 2; lower floret male or sterile; lemma similar to upper glume but less gibbous, distinctly ribbed, glabrous, awnless, with or without a palea; upper floret bisexual; lemma firmer than glumes, entire, indurated, brittle, smooth, glossy, obscurely 3-5-nerved, margins inrolled and clasping edges of palea, awnless; palea similar to lemma
• Lodicules 2, broadly cuneate
• Stamens 3
• Ovary ellipsoid, glabrous; styles distinct, plumose near ends
• Caryopsis obliquely ellipsoid
• x = 9 (polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

• Sacciolepis Nash
  • Nash: 89 (1901)
  • Stapf: 386 (1899)
  • Stapf: 747 (1920)
  • Chippindall: 356 (1955)
  • Launert: 163 (1970)
  • Clayton & Renvoize: 454 (1982)
  • Clayton & Renvoize: 277 (1986)
  • Clayton: 41 (1989)
  • Gibbs Russell et al.: 284 (1990)
  • Watson & Dallwitz: 835 (1994)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global : Species 30, tropics, mainly Africa
• Southern Africa : Species 8, N Namibia, Botswana, northern provinces of South Africa, Swaziland and KwaZulu-Natal to just into Eastern Cape