Description:

• Annual, tufted to decumbent
• Leaf blade expanded, linear, glabrous; ligule a narrow fringed membrane
• Inflorescence narrow with many dense, short, very compact spikes on a central axis, these becoming deflexed at maturity, lower spikelets of each spike often replaced by small deciduous branchlets, rachis of spikes flattened; spikelets solitary, sessile
• Spikelet 5.7-9.0 mm long, laterally compressed, disarticulating above glumes and between florets, wedge-shaped; glumes ± equal, as long as to longer than spikelet, lanceolate, glabrous, long-acuminate, tapering into a short, straight awn, 1-nerved, keeled, scabrid on keels
• Florets 1-3, bisexual but uppermost floret reduced; lemma less firm to similar in texture to glumes, membranous, lanceolate, acute, 3-nerved, keeled, glabrous or pilose around lower half of back and along lateral nerves, usually minutely 2-toothed and mucronate at apex; palea as long as lemma, bidentate, 2-keeled, membranous, pilose on flaps alongside keels
• Lodicules 2
• Stamens 3
• Ovary glabrous; styles distinct, short, plumose
• Caryopsis ellipsoid-oblong
• x = 10

Nomenclature:

• Dinebra Jacq.
  • Jacquin: 77 (1809)
  • Stent: 291 (1924)
  • Chippindall: 185 (1955)
  • Phillips: 411 (1973)
  • Phillips: 272 (1974)
  • Clayton & Renvoize: 214 (1986)
  • Gibbs Russell et al.: 116 (1990)
  • Watson & Dallwitz: 336 (1994)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Species 3, Africa to India and Madagascar
• Southern Africa: Species 1: Dinebra retroflexa (Vahl) Panz. var. condensata S.M.Phillips, Namibia, Botswana, northern provinces of South Africa