Description:

• Annual or perennial, tufted, rhizomatous, sometimes geniculate
• Leaf blade linear, expanded or folded; ligule a dense fringe of hairs
• Inflorescence a panicle, open to contracted, sometimes spike-like; spikelets solitary, pedicelled
• Spikelet disarticulating above glumes; glumes unequal to ± equal, equal to longer than spikelet (at least one glume), 1-keeled to middle or below, narrow, awnless to mucronate or awned; lower glume 1-nerved; upper glume 1(-3)-nerved
• Floret 1, bisexual; lemma firmer than glumes, indurated, cylindrical, dorsally or laterally compressed, margins involute, forming a ventral groove, 3-nerved, 3-awned; awns usually fused to appear as 1 awn with 3 branches, lateral awns sometimes reduced or 0, glabrous or scabrid, never hairy, column present or 0, long or short and twisted, articulation various: between apex of column and base of awns, between apex of lemma and base of column or 0; callus usually well developed, obtuse, truncate, acute to pungent, bifid, or emarginate, hairy, usually with short stiff hairs; palea usually half as long as lemma, not indurated, nerveless, or 2-nerved, margins curved inwards
• Lodicules 2 or 0
• Stamens 1 or 3
• Ovary glabrous; styles plumose
• Caryopsis terete, shallowly grooved
• x = 11, 12 (polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

• Aristida L.
  • Linnaeus: 82 (1753)
  • Stapf: 551 (1899)
  • Henrard: 1 (1926-1933)
  • Henrard: 45 (1929-1933)
  • Chippindall: 291 (1955)
  • De Winter: 234 (1965)
  • Clayton: 140 (1970)
  • Launert: 25 (1970)
  • Melderis: 97 (1971)
  • Clayton & Renvoize: 186 (1986)
  • Gibbs Russell et al.: 45 (1990)
  • Watson & Dallwitz: 134 (1994)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Species ± 290, tropics and subtropics
• Southern Africa: Species 28, widespread