Description:

• Perennial, rarely annual, tufted
• Leaf blade linear or lanceolate-linear, expanded; ligule a fringe of hairs
• Inflorescence an open or contracted panicle; spikelets paired, rarely in threes or solitary, pedicelled, pedicels free
• Spikelet 4-20 mm long, laterally compressed, disarticulating above glumes; glumes very unequal, scarious-membranous to chartaceous, rarely thinly coriaceous, 3-5-nerved, glabrous, dissimilar; lower glume not more than half the length of upper; upper glume lanceolate, ovate, oblong
• Florets 2; lower floret male with lemma similar to upper glume, as long as or slightly shorter than spikelet, (3)5-9-nerved, awnless; palea membranous, narrow, 2-keeled with keels very narrowly winged; upper floret bisexual, lemma 7-9-nerved, similar in texture to glumes, hairy, hairs in 2-8 distinct tufts or fringes or tufts mixed with dispersed hairs, deeply 2-lobed, lobes acute, sometimes produced into fine scaberulous awns, awned from between lobes; awn geniculate, twisted below bend; callus short, square to oblong, obtuse; palea similar to that of lower floret but keels firmer and usually with wider wings; wings expanded into ± triangular or clavate appendages
• Lodicules 2, cuneate, fleshy
• Stamens 3
• Ovary glabrous; styles distinct, plumose above
• x = 12 (1 report, polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

• Danthoniopsis Stapf
  • Stapf: t. 3075 (1916)
  • Chippindall: 285 (1955)
  • Conert: 317 (1957)
  • Clayton & Renvoize: 317 (1986)
  • Clayton: 199 (1989)
  • Gibbs Russell et al.: 101 (1990)
  • Watson & Dallwitz: 298 (1994)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Species ± 20, Africa, Arabian Peninsula
• Southern Africa: Species 6, Namibia into Northern Cape, Northern Province, Mpumalanga and KwaZulu-Natal