Description:

• Annual, tufted
• Leaf blade linear-lanceolate; ligule a fringe of long hairs
• Inflorescence a panicle, rather dense and contracted, branches single; rachis and branches grooved, densely villous, with a mixture of long, villous hairs and shorter, gland-tipped hairs; spikelets shortly pedicelled or subsessile, clustered on somewhat short branches
• Spikelet not noticeably compressed, subglobose, disarticulating between glumes; glumes ± equal, ± equalling spikelet, subacute, 9-11-nerved, hairy, with long thin hairs mixed with shorter club-shaped, glandular hairs, awnless
• Florets 3-6, bisexual, uppermost floret reduced, sterile, usually awnless; lower lemma coriaceous, becoming indurated, densely hairy in lower half between nerves, 9-nerved, apex incurved and emarginate, each margin is lobed, sometimes with 1 or 2 shorter additional lobes, 2-5-awned, lobes usually black in colour, marginal lobes with large, flat awns, median lobes with smaller awns; awns straight, hairy; palea elliptic, thinly coriaceous, shallowly concave dorsally, keels somewhat thickened, densely fimbriate with short stiff bristles, margin membranous, inflexed, long villous at base
• Lodicules 2, somewhat fleshy, wedge-shaped, with a somewhat truncate apex
• Stamens 3
• Ovary glabrous, obovate-cuneate; styles 2, plumose
• Caryopsis obovoid

Nomenclature:

• Kaokochloa De Winter
  • De Winter: 479 (1961)
  • Launert: 123 (1970)
  • Clayton & Renvoize: 190 (1986)
  • Gibbs Russell et al.: 191 (1990)
  • Watson & Dallwitz: 509 (1994)

Distribution & Notes:

• Southern Africa: Species 1: Kaokochloa nigrirostris De Winter, NW Namibia