Description:

• Annual or perennial, tufted or decumbent
• Leaf blade expanded or ± convolute, linear to lanceolate, glabrous or hairy with tubercle-based hairs; ligule a fringed membrane or a fringe of hairs
• Inflorescence of spike-like, 1-sided racemes, digitate or subdigitate, usually on a short central axis; spikelets 2- or 3-nate, rarely solitary or in clusters, unequally pedicelled
• Spikelet falling with glumes, ovate to elliptic, dorsiventrally compressed; glumes unequal; lower glume shorter than spikelet, membranous, acute to acuminate, pubescent, 3-5-nerved, usually awnless; upper glume equalling lemma, elliptic, sometimes with broad auricled flaps, membranous to chartaceous, 5-nerved, hairy on margins
• Florets 2; lower floret male or sterile, lemma resembling upper glume but not hairy, indurated, 3-5-nerved; palea shorter than lemma, deeply 2-lobed with marginal flaps, awnless; upper floret bisexual, lemma similar in texture to glumes, membranous to chartaceous, margins flat and exposed on palea, covering most of palea, 5-nerved, long attenuate into an awn or mucro, awn straight; palea as long as lemma, 2-keeled
• Lodicules 2, broadly cuneate
• Stamens 3
• Ovary glabrous; styles plumose above
• Caryopsis ellipsoid to oblong
• x = 9 (polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

• Alloteropsis J.Presl
  • Presl: 343 (1830)
  • Stapf: 482 (1919)
  • Chippindall: 423 (1955)
  • Butzin: 123 (1968)
  • Clayton & Renvoize: 615 (1982)
  • Clayton & Renvoize: 282 (1986)
  • Clayton: 58 (1989)
  • Gibbs Russell et al.: 36 (1990)
  • Watson & Dallwitz: 91 (1994)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Species ± 8, Old World tropics
• Southern Africa: Species 3, Namibia (Caprivi), northern provinces of South Africa, Swaziland, Free State, KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape