Description :

• Perennial or annual, tufted, sometimes decumbent at base, stoloniferous, sometimes rooting from nodes; culms decumbent, more rarely erect
• Leaf blade and sheaths usually bearing gland-tipped hairs, often viscid; ligule a fringe of hairs
• Inflorescence a panicle, open or contracted; spikelets solitary, shortly pedicelled to subsessile
• Spikelet slightly laterally compressed, disarticulating above glumes; glumes unequal to ± equal, ± as long as spikelet, similar, membranous, green or grey, glabrous or hairy, hairs sometimes glandular, lanceolate, 7-11(14)-nerved, awnless
• Florets 4-9, bisexual; upper 1 or 2 florets usually reduced and sterile; lemma dorsally rounded, firmer than glumes, 9-nerved, subcoriaceous, dorsally long-villous towards base, usually scabrid, 6-lobed, lobes alternating with 5 straight, scabrid awns from between lobes; callus minute, pointed, hairy; palea longer than lemma, oblong or elliptic-oblong, 2-keeled, with narrow flaps, stiffly ciliate along keels, cilia very often with interspersed glandular-tipped hairs
• Lodicules 2, minute, cuneate, truncate or often with apex shallowly bilobed with gland-tipped hairs
• Stamens 3
• Ovary glabrous; styles distinct, plumose
• Caryopsis ellipsoid
• x = 9 (polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

• Schmidtia Steud. ex J.A.Schmidt
  • Schmidt: 144 (1852) name conserved, not of Moench, not of Tratt.
  • Chippindall: 231 (1955)
  • Launert: 308 (1965)
  • Launert: 168 (1970)
  • Renvoize: 165 (1970)
  • Launert: 149 (1971)
  • Clayton & Renvoize: 189 (1986)
  • Gibbs Russell et al.: 290 (1990)
  • Watson & Dallwitz: 848 (1994)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global : Species 2, Africa and Pakistan
• Southern Africa : Species 2, widespread