Description:

• Perennial, rarely annual, tufted or mat-forming
• Leaf blade longitudinally folded and setaceous, rarely expanded; ligule a narrow fringed membrane or a fringe of hairs
• Inflorescence a solitary, terminal, slender, curved, 1-sided spike; rachis semicrescent in section, hairy; spikelets solitary, sessile
• Spikelet dark, dorsiventrally to not noticeably compressed, disarticulating above glumes; glumes ± equal, ± as long as spikelet or lower glume little shorter than spikelet, dissimilar, membranous, 1-nerved, awnless; lower glume lanceolate or linear-oblong, acute or obtuse, keeled, somewhat gibbous at base; upper glume lanceolate, acute, rounded on back
• Floret 1, bisexual; lemma lanceolate or ovate, membranous to hyaline, 2-nerved, densely hairy on margins and midrib, awnless or mucronate; palea almost equalling or slightly shorter than lemma, hyaline, pilose
• Lodicules 2, cuneate, glabrous, thin, faintly nerved
• Stamens 3
• Ovary glabrous; styles distinct, plumose
• Caryopsis ellipsoid
• x = 10 (polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

• Microchloa R.Br.
  • Brown: 208 (1810)
  • Stapf: 635 (1900)
  • Stent: 287 (1924)
  • Chippindall: 203 (1955)
  • Launert: 129 (1970)
  • Renvoize: 313 (1974)
  • Clayton & Renvoize: 242 (1986)
  • Gibbs Russell et al.: 218 (1990)
  • Watson & Dallwitz: 601 (1994)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Species ± 4, throughout tropics
• Southern Africa: Species 3, widespread, not recorded in Western Cape