Description:

• Perennial, rarely annual, robust, usually 400 or more mm tall, rarely less, tufted
• Leaf blade long-linear, folded; ligule a short fringed membrane
• Inflorescence terminal, of long, slender, 1-sided, spike-like racemes, these usually solitary, sometimes 2-8 present and digitate; spikelets solitary, sessile to subsessile, appressed to rachis in 2 rows
• Spikelet 3-5 mm long, dorsiventrally compressed, disarticulating above glumes and between florets; glumes unequal, hyaline, 1-nerved, lanceolate, acuminate to acute, terminating in a short awn-point; lower glume ± half as long as upper
• Florets 2-6; lower floret bisexual, upper floret sterile or reduced, remaining floret(s) male or sometimes bisexual; lemma firmer than glumes, membranous, lanceolate, rounded to flat on back, glabrous, 3-nerved, shortly 2-lobed, awned from between lobes; awn straight, glabrous; callus short, hairy; palea lanceolate, shortly 2-lobed, 2-keeled, concave between keels, minutely hairy on keels above
• Lodicules 2
• Stamens 3
• Ovary oblong, glabrous; styles distinct, plumose above
• Caryopsis ellipsoid
• x = 10

Nomenclature:

• Enteropogon Nees
  • Nees ab Esenbeck: 448 (1836)
  • Chippindall: 192 (1955)
  • Clayton: 105 (1967)
  • Launert: 79 (1970)
  • Renvoize: 331 (1974)
  • Clayton & Renvoize: 238 (1986)
  • Gibbs Russell et al.: 136 (1990)
  • Watson & Dallwitz: 376 (1994)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Species ± 6-17, tropical
• Southern Africa: Species 4, N Namibia, Botswana, northern provinces of South Africa and KwaZulu-Natal