Description :

• Perennial, rarely annual, tufted
• Leaf blade long, narrow, often setaceous; ligule a short, unfringed membrane
• Inflorescence a solitary, terminal, rigid or flexuous, cylindrical raceme, raceme joints transverse; internodes clavate, as long as or longer than spikelets; spikelets in pairs, in long-short combinations: one sessile, the other pedicelled; pedicels free
• Sessile spikelet dorsiventrally compressed, falling with glumes; glumes ± equal, awned or awnless (sometimes one or the other or both); lower glume coriaceous, rugose or strongly ribbed, 2-keeled or rounded on flanks, sharply inflexed on lower part, rarely winged; upper glume membranous or hyaline, with or without terminal bristle-like awn
• Florets 2; lower floret male, rarely sterile; palea reduced; upper floret bisexual; lemma hyaline, awnless; callus truncate with central peg; palea hyaline, shorter than lemma
• Lodicules 2, fleshy
• Stamens 3
• Ovary glabrous; styles short, plumose
• Caryopsis oblong, dorsiventrally compressed

• Pedicelled spikelet male, sterile or much suppressed, often represented by a bristle or awn, up to 5 mm long, and a pedicel
• x = 10

Nomenclature:

• Rhytachne Desv.
  • Desvaux: 11 (1825)
  • Stapf: 81 (1917)
  • Chippindall: 519 (1955)
  • Clayton & Renvoize: 843 (1982)
  • Clayton & Renvoize: 364 (1986)
  • Gibbs Russell et al.: 281 (1990)
  • Watson & Dallwitz: 825 (1994)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global : Species 12, tropical and southern Africa, Madagascar and tropical South America
• Southern Africa : Species 3, eastern Caprivi (Namibia), N KwaZulu-Natal and NE Eastern Cape