Description:

• Perennial or annual, tufted or decumbent, stoloniferous
• Leaf blade linear to almost lanceolate, rigid; ligule a short, truncate, fringed membrane
• Inflorescence of racemes on a central axis, these long and deciduous or short, persistent and crowded into a loose head or spreading; spikelets solitary, pedicelled
• Spikelet laterally compressed, lanceolate-oblong to ovate-oblong, disarticulating above glumes and between florets; glumes ± equal, shorter than spikelet, lateral to rachis, lanceolate, keeled, glabrous to minutely scaberulous; lower glume subcoriaceous, acute, awnless, sometimes mucronate, 1-3-nerved; upper glume coriaceous with margins membranous, 3-7-nerved, acuminate to shortly mucronate from between lobes
• Florets 3-7, bisexual or uppermost floret reduced and sterile; lemma similar in texture to glumes, chartaceous, subobtuse to obtuse, lightly keeled with a single median keel, glabrous or hairy on margins, 3-7-nerved, nerves faint in upper half, 2-lobed, shortly mucronate; callus 0; palea shorter than lemma, slightly gibbous at base, lanceolate to ovate-lanceolate, 2-keeled
• Lodicules 2, hyaline, minute
• Stamens 3
• Ovary glabrous; styles distinct, plumose
• Caryopsis ellipsoid or trigonous, with free pericarp

Nomenclature:

• Brachychloa S.M.Phillips
  • Phillips: 158 (1982)
  • Clayton & Renvoize: 214 (1986)
  • Gibbs Russell et al.: 69 (1990)
  • Watson & Dallwitz: 182 (1994)
• Heterocarpha Stapf & C.E.Hubb.
  • Stapf & Hubbard: 263 (1929) in part
  • Schweickerdt: 193 (1961)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Species 2, both in Mozambique and southern Africa
• Southern Africa: KwaZulu-Natal