Description:

• Perennial, densely tufted, rhizomatous
• Culms flattened
• Leaf blade stiff, linear, expanded, folded or rolled, strongly keeled; ligule a minute, fringed membrane
• Inflorescence a solitary (rarely 2), 1-sided spike; rachis pubescent or woolly; spikelets solitary, sessile, arranged in 2 rows on abaxial face of rachis
• Spikelet laterally compressed, darkly pigmented, disarticulating above glumes, not between florets; glumes unequal, dissimilar, membranous or subcoriaceous, awnless; lower glume less than half as long as upper glume, 1-keeled, 1-nerved; upper glume ± as long as spikelet, boat-shaped, somewhat falcate, 3-nerved, 2-keeled, scabrid on keels
• Florets 2-4; lowest floret bisexual; second and third male, fourth floret, if present, sterile; lemmas dissimilar, decreasing in size upwards, 3-nerved, awnless, lowest lemma sharply folded along keel, membranous, elliptic or elliptic-oblong, obtuse, long-hairy on nerves and margins, upper lemma obovate or spathulate, rounded or almost truncate above, with 2 marginal nerves, glabrous; palea equalling or slightly longer than lemma, lanceolate or linear-lanceolate, hairy near tip
• Lodicules cuneate, fleshy, narrowly 2-winged
• Stamens 3
• Ovary glabrous; styles distinct, plumose
• Caryopsis ellipsoid, trigonous
• x = 10 (polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

• Harpochloa Kunth
  • Kunth: 92 (1829) as Harpechloa
  • Stapf: 639 (1900) as Harpechloa
  • Chippindall: 191 (1955) as Harpechloa
  • Pilger: 101 (1956)
  • Clayton & Renvoize: 241 (1986)
  • Gibbs Russell et al.: 174 (1990)
  • Watson & Dallwitz: 444 (1994)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Species ± 2
• Southern Africa: Species 1: Harpochloa falx (L.f.) Kuntze, northern provinces of South Africa, Swaziland, Free State, KwaZulu-Natal, Western and Eastern Cape