Description:

• Annuals or perennials, mainly tufted
• Culms with basal nodes
• Leaves basal, ligulate or eligulate, slender, often pubescent; sheath with adaxial apex truncate, usually ciliate; blade usually setaceous, sometimes linear, flat, often very short or 0, without keeled midrib, profile thickly crescentiform
• Inflorescence a single spikelet or capitate, or a simple or compound anthela
• Spikelets of many spirally imbricate glumes, lowest 1 or 2 glumes empty, many above fertile, bisexual, uppermost with male florets or empty, nearly always pubescent on the back
• Perianth 0
• Stamens 2 or 3
• Style linear, with swollen base, (2)3-branched, deciduous, leaving enlarged base as a small button on nut
• Nutlet obovoid, 3-angled, trabeculate, rugose, warty, papillose or smooth
• x = 5 (polyploidy)

Classification Notes:

• The problem of the interrelationship between the generic concepts of Fimbristylis, Abildgaardia and Bulbostylis is discussed by Lye: 539 (1971) and Gordon-Gray: 549 (1971) respectively
• Lye took positive action by making transfers from Bulbostylis to Abildgaardia, whereas Gordon-Gray expressed reservations
• Gordon-Gray (1995) has accepted the genus as here defined
• Recently Lye: 108 (1995) has again accepted the genus Bulbostylis; the differences between Abildgaardia and Bulbostylis are summarised by Lye: 595 (1996)

Nomenclature:

• Bulbostylis Kunth
  • Kunth: 205 (1837) name conserved
  • Clarke: 204 (1898)
  • Clarke: 427 (1902)
  • Schonland: 35 (1922)
  • Podlech: 4 (1967)
  • Gordon-Gray: 549 (1971)
  • Gordon-Gray: 110 (1972)
  • Compton: 72 (1976)
  • Bond & Goldblatt: 38 (1984)
  • Forbes: 35 (1987)
  • Gordon-Gray: 25 (1995)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Species ± 100, mainly tropical Africa and tropical America
• Southern Africa: Species ± 15, Namibia, Botswana, Northern Province, North-West, Gauteng, Mpumalanga, Free State, Swaziland, KwaZulu-Natal, Lesotho, Northern and Eastern Cape with 1 reaching the Cape Peninsula