Annuals or (in ours) perennials. Inflorescence consisting of paired racemes subtended by spatheoles and crowded in a large leafy false panicle.
Racemes borne on a stalk (raceme-base) which may be deflexed at maturity; each raceme short, with usually 2 sessile spikelets per pair and with a single homogamous pair at the base of the lower raceme. Raceme-bases unequal, terete, the apex oblique and produced into a scarious appendage.
Rhachis internodes and pedicels linear.
Sessile spikelet: callus pungent, applied obliquely to the apex of the internode; lower glume with a median groove; upper glume with or without an awn; lower floret reduced to a hyaline lemma; upper lemma hyaline, 2-dentate bearing a stout awn at the apex with a hirsute column. Pedicellate spikelet male, narrowed to an indistinct basal callus. Worldwide: 7 species in tropical Africa Caprivi: 1 taxon. |
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