perennial; culms fascicled on a very short præmorse rhizome, innovation shoots few, usually intravaginal; culms erect, rarely ascending from a prostrate, rooting base, 1 to several feet long, usually sheathed throughout, glabrous; leaves glabrous or more or less softly hairy; sheaths lax, rather thin, the lower often purplish; ligules membranous, short; blades linear to linear-lanceolate, acute to acuminate, 4–8 in. (rarely longer in the African specimens) by 2–4 lin., soft, flat or with involute margins; false spikes 2–3 (in the South African specimens) or more, rhachis herbaceous, 1–1 1/2 lin. broad, margins rigidly ciliate; pedicels very short, almost wholly adnate; spikelets 2-, rarely 3–4-ranked, imbricate, broadly elliptic to orbicular, obtuse, 1–1 1/2 lin. long, glabrous; lower glume 0, upper convex, 3–7-nerved; lower valve flat, often obscurely pitted or wrinkled near the margin, 5–7-nerved, submarginal nerves 2 on each side, very close; upper valve subcoriaceous, brown, shining; flaps of pale auricled; anthers over 1/2 lin. long. null
