Compilation
Penicillaria nigritarum

annual; culms erect, stout, 1 to several feet high, usually terete and simple, 5- or more-noded, hairy to villous below the panicle, otherwise usually glabrous; sheaths terete, glabrous except the bearded nodes and the often villous junction with the blade, rarely hirsute, usually slightly rough, rather shorter than the internodes; ligule a narrow long and densely ciliate rim; blades linear to linear-lanceolate from a rounded base, acute, 1/2–2 ft. by 1/3–1 1/2 in., flat, more or less rough, glabrous, rarely hirsute; panicle spike-like, cylindric, very dense, 4–8 in. by 5–9 lin. (in the South African specimens) or longer and thicker, often purplish; rhachis stout, villous; branchlets reduced to a peduncled involucrate cluster of 3–1 spikelets; peduncles villous, straight; 1–2 1/2 lin. long, often horizontally spreading or partly deflexed; involucre of very numerous ciliate often purplish bristles about as long as the spikelets; spikelets sessile or shortly pedicelled within the involucre, readily deciduous when ripe, oblong, 2–2 1/2 lin. long, pale or purplish upwards; glumes broadly ovate, obtuse, minute, hyaline, nerveless, ciliate, or larger (the upper to 1/2 the length of the spikelet), firmer and 3-nerved; florets similar, subequal, lower ♂ or reduced to a minute empty hyaline valve; valves broadly oblong, cuspidate or mucronate, 5–7-nerved, glabrous, ciliate or pubescent towards the margins or the tips; pales broad, oblong, truncate, glabrous, ciliate, or the flaps pubescent below; lodicules 0; anthers 1–1 1/4 lin. long, tips bearded; styles connate; grain ellipsoid to subglobose, equalling the gaping chartaceous very smooth valve and pale. null