Description:

• Perennial, tufted, stoloniferous
• Leaf blade somewhat linear, expanded or folded, apex abruptly rounded; ligule a narrow, fringed membrane
• Inflorescence of 2-many slender racemes, digitate or subdigitate; spikelets solitary, subsessile, alternating on one side of 3-angled rachis, back of upper lemma turned away from rachis
• Spikelet lanceolate to oblong, dorsiventrally compressed, falling with glumes; glumes unequal, awnless; lower glume absent; upper glume membranous, as long as spikelet, 4- or 5-nerved
• Florets 2; lower floret sterile, with lemma similar to upper glume; palea 0; upper floret bisexual, lemma firmer than glumes, chartaceous to crustaceous, as long as spikelet, obtuse, 4-nerved, glabrous, entire, with back turned away from rachis, margins narrow, inrolled and covering only edges of palea, awnless; palea equal or subequal to lemma, indurated
• Lodicules 2, minute, broadly cuneate
• Stamens 3
• Ovary glabrous; styles distinct, plumose
• Caryopsis ellipsoid, dorsiventrally compressed
• x = 10 (high polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

• *Axonopus P.Beauv.
  • Palisot de Beauvois: 12 (1812)
  • Stapf: 417 (1899)
  • Stapf: 566 (1919)
  • Clayton & Renvoize: 613 (1982)
  • Clayton & Renvoize: 289 (1986)
  • Clayton: 91 (1989)
  • Gibbs Russell et al.: 59 (1990)
  • Watson & Dallwitz: 160 (1994)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Species 110, tropical and subtropical America
• Southern Africa: Species 1: *Axonopus affinis Chase, naturalised in Africa, Mpumalanga, Swaziland, KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape