Description:

• Perennial; culms woody, stiffly geniculate, branched profusely from swollen nodes
• Leaf blade linear, expanded or rolled, often spiny, hard and brittle; leaf sheath broad and papery; ligule a fringe of hairs
• Inflorescence a contracted but loose panicle, branches slender, each with 2-6 spikelets; spikelets solitary or paired, pedicels unequal, hairy, contracted at base into a short stalk which fits into cup-like apex of pedicel
• Spikelet 7 mm long, dorsiventrally compressed, falling with glumes; glumes ± equal to unequal, ± equal to longer than spikelet, dissimilar; lower glume membranous, lanceolate, obtuse or notched at apex, hairy at base, 3-nerved; upper glume ovate-lanceolate, tapering into a long awn-like apex, 5-7-nerved, long-hairy dorsally, with a transverse fringe or tufts of hairs on either side just above middle, or a continuous fringe
• Florets 2; lower floret male, lemma equalling upper glume, channelled dorsally, hairy, hairs always in 2 fringes; palea well developed; upper floret bisexual; lemma ± half as long as lower lemma, elliptic, obtuse, indurated, smooth, glossy, glabrous, faintly 5-nerved, awnless; palea relatively long
• Lodicules 2, cuneate, fleshy
• Stamens 3
• Ovary ellipsoid; styles free, plumose
• x = 9 (1 report)

Nomenclature:

• Leucophrys Rendle
  • Rendle: 193 (1899)
  • Pilger: 254 (1954)~(Page number suspect - No access to the publication)
  • Chippindall: 379 (1955)
  • Launert: 126 (1970)
  • Clayton & Renvoize: 283 (1986) under Brachiaria Griseb.
  • Gibbs Russell et al.: 200 (1990)
  • Watson & Dallwitz: 544 (1994)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Species 1: Leucophrys mesocoma (Nees) Rendle, Angola and southern Africa
• Southern Africa: S Namibia to Northern Cape