Description :

• Perennial, tufted, glaucous
• Leaf blade linear, long, flat; ligule an unfringed membrane
• Inflorescence a spike-like, cylindrical, contracted panicle, rarely with lower branches shortly produced, hairy; spikelets shortly pedicelled, clustered, or usually in pairs on lower branches
• Spikelet 4.0-4.5 mm long, dorsiventrally compressed, narrowly elliptic, subacute to acute, falling with glumes; glumes ± equal, ± two-thirds length of spikelet, acuminate, awnless; lower glume 1-nerved, hairy or glabrous except near margins; upper glume 3-nerved, hairy
• Florets 2; lower floret reduced to a lemma, 5-7-nerved, hairy with long, spreading hairs between nerves and near margins; upper floret bisexual, lemma ± as long as lower lemma, similar in texture to glumes, chartaceous, glabrous, without median keel, rounded on back, at least at base, margins lying flat and exposed on palea, awnless; palea equalling lemma, chartaceous, 2-nerved
• Lodicules minute, cuneate
• Stamens 3
• Ovary glabrous; styles connate at base, plumose

Nomenclature:

• Tarigidia Stent
  • Stent: 151 (1932)
  • Chippindall: 422 (1955)
  • Clayton & Renvoize: 300 (1986)
  • Gibbs Russell et al.: 331 (1990)
  • Watson & Dallwitz: 927 (1994)

Distribution & Notes:

• Southern Africa : Species 1: Tarigidia aequiglumis (Gooss.) Stent, sporadic in Namibia, North-West and Free State