Description:

• Perennial, rarely annual, tufted, wiry
• Leaf blade linear, expanded or rolled; ligule a very short fringed membrane
• Inflorescence a solitary, terminal, often strongly falcate, 1-sided spike; spikelets alternately biseriate along midrib of flattened rachis; spikelet solitary, sessile
• Spikelet laterally compressed, disarticulating above glumes, not between florets; glumes unequal, dissimilar, tubercled on nerves; lower glume membranous, ± half as long as upper, 1-nerved, acute, keeled, with awn-point; upper glume longer than lemma, lanceolate, flat or rounded obliquely, acuminate, 2- or 3-nerved, awned from back below apex with oblique dorsal awn
• Florets 3-5, lower 2 florets male or sterile, third floret bisexual, uppermost floret rudimentary or male; lemma less firm in texture than glumes, dissimilar, oblong, entire, obtuse, 3-nerved, hairy or uppermost glabrous, awned from just below apex; awn straight; palea shorter than lemma, 2-keeled, 2-nerved
• Lodicules 2, quadrate-cuneate or ovate, delicate
• Stamens 3 in bisexual floret, 2 in male floret
• Ovary glabrous; styles distinct, plumose above
• Caryopsis ellipsoid
• x = 9 (high polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

• Ctenium Panz.
  • Panzer: 36, 59 (1813) name conserved
  • Stapf: 638 (1900)
  • Stent: 289 (1924)
  • Chippindall: 192 (1955)
  • Renvoize: 323 (1974)
  • Clayton & Renvoize: 241 (1986)
  • Gibbs Russell et al.: 93 (1990)
  • Watson & Dallwitz: 272 (1994)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Species ± 20, tropical and subtropical America and Africa, Madagascar
• Southern Africa: Species 1: Ctenium concinnum Nees, northern provinces of South Africa, Swaziland, KwaZulu-Natal, Lesotho and Eastern Cape