Description:

• Annual, tufted
• Leaf blade linear-lanceolate, expanded, ± cordate at base; ligule a fringed membrane
• Inflorescence of many, solitary racemes aggregated into a spatheate false panicle, racemes dorsally compressed, internodes flattened, oblong and fused to adjacent pedicels, disarticulating obliquely; spikelets in pairs, in long-short combinations: one sessile, the other pedicelled, appearing sessile due to fusion of pedicel with rachis
• Sessile spikelet falling with glumes, globose; glumes ± equal, dissimilar, awnless; lower glume hemispherical, cartilaginous, globose, rugose, conspicuously pitted or tuberculate, wingless; upper glume ovate-lanceolate, smooth, partly adhering to enclosing internode
• Florets 2; lower floret sterile, reduced to a small hyaline lemma, awnless; upper floret bisexual; lemma less firm than glumes, hyaline, much shorter than glumes, entire, glabrous, awnless; callus obliquely truncate with a central boss; palea hyaline, similar to lemma
• Lodicules 2, fleshy, broadly cuneate
• Stamens 3
• Ovary glabrous; styles distinct, short, plumose
• Caryopsis oblate, slightly dorsally flattened

• Pedicelled spikelet slightly longer than sessile spikelet, ovate, narrowly winged, bisexual, male or sterile; lower lemma present or 0, pedicel scarcely distinguishable from internode
• x = 7

Nomenclature:

• Hackelochloa Kuntze
  • Kuntze: 776 (1891)
  • Chippindall: 523 (1955)
  • Veldkamp et al.: 281 (1986)
  • Clayton & Renvoize: 847 (1982)
  • Clayton & Renvoize: 366 (1986)
  • Gibbs Russell et al.: 172 (1990)
  • Watson & Dallwitz: 438 (1994)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Species 2, tropics, Africa, India, S China and S United States of America
• Southern Africa: Species 1: Hackelochloa granularis (L.) Kuntze, Mpumalanga