Description:

• Annual or perennial, tufted, stoloniferous, rhizomatous, often geniculate
• Leaf blade lanceolate to linear, expanded or rolled; ligule an unfringed or fringed membrane, rarely a fringe of hairs
• Inflorescence a contracted or open panicle of several, slender, 1-sided, spike-like racemes scattered along a central axis; spikelets solitary, subsessile or shortly pedicelled
• Spikelet 1.9-14.0 mm long, laterally or dorsiventrally to not noticeably compressed, disarticulating above glumes and between florets; glumes unequal to ± equal, shorter to rarely longer than spikelet, similar, membranous, lanceolate to ovate, sometimes subacuminate or notched, 1-nerved, keeled to rounded on back, mucronate to awnless
• Florets 1-20, bisexual; uppermost floret sterile or reduced, often decreasing in size upwards; lemma lanceolate or oblong-elliptic to elliptic, keeled to rounded or flattened on back, less firm to similar in texture as glumes, 3-nerved, glabrous or minutely hairy along nerves and/or back or margins, single median keel present on back to not keeled, obtuse or acute to ± truncate or 2-lobed, awnless, mucronate or awned between lobes; awn shorter than body of lemma to minute, sometimes lateral nerves excurrent into short mucros; callus short, blunt; palea almost as long as lemma, sometimes 2-lobed, 2-keeled, flat dorsally or concave between keels, glabrous to minutely or distinctly hairy, subhyaline
• Lodicules 2, cuneate, fleshy, glabrous
• Stamens 3
• Ovary glabrous; styles distinct, plumose
• Caryopsis ellipsoid to ellipsoid-oblong, laterally to dorsally compressed
• x = 10 (polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

• Leptochloa P.Beauv.
  • Palisot de Beauvois: 71 (1812)
  • Chippindall: 121 (1955)
  • Pilger: 41 (1956)
  • Phillips: 276 (1974)
  • Phillips: 142 (1982)
  • Clayton & Renvoize: 209 (1986)
  • Gibbs Russell et al.: 198 (1990)
  • Watson & Dallwitz: 531 (1994)
  • Cope: 23 (1999)
• Diplachne P.Beauv.
  • Palisot de Beauvois: 80 (1812)
  • Stapf: 590 (1900)
  • Stent: 296 (1924)
  • Chippindall: 118 (1955)
  • Launert: 67 (1970)
  • Phillips: 281 (1974)
  • Phillips: 142 (1982)
  • Gibbs Russell et al.: 116 (1990)
  • Watson & Dallwitz: 338 (1994)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Species ± 30, tropical and subtropical regions
• Southern Africa: Species 7, widespread