Description:

• Perennial, caespitose and rhizomatous, usually with long prostrate base
• Leaf blade expanded; ligule a narrow, fringed membrane or fringe of hairs
• Inflorescence of a number of 1-sided, spike-like racemes scattered on a central axis, sometimes a panicle; spikelets usually in pairs, pedicelled, pedicels of each pair ± connate below
• Spikelet oblong, laterally compressed or dorsiventrally or plumply subterete; upper glume and lower lemma ± thickened at apex; glumes unequal in size, similar, membranous; lower glume lanceolate, 3-nerved, shorter than spikelet; upper glume longer than spikelet, 5-7-nerved
• Florets 2; lower floret male or sterile; lemma similar to upper glume, 5-7-nerved, awnless; palea developed, hyaline; upper floret bisexual; lemma firmer than glumes, crustaceous, oblong, very obscurely keeled or rounded on back, faintly 5-nerved, glabrous and shiny; tip with distinct green crest, hard and blunt, awnless; palea similar to lemma
• Lodicules 2, cuneate, fleshy
• Stamens 3
• Ovary ellipsoid, glabrous; styles large, plumose
• Caryopsis ellipsoid, flattened on one side
• x = 9 (polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

• Acroceras Stapf
  • Stapf: 621 (1920)
  • Chippindall: 385 (1955)
  • Launert: 19 (1970)
  • Clayton & Renvoize: 831 (1982)
  • Clayton & Renvoize: 363 (1986)
  • Clayton: 48 (1989)
  • Gibbs Russell et al.: 353 (1990)
  • Watson & Dallwitz: 71 (1994)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Species ± 19, Africa, Madagascar and Indomalayan region
• Southern Africa: Species 1: Acroceras macrum Stapf, N Namibia, Botswana, northern provinces of South Africa, KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape