Compilation
Pennisetum leekei

Perennial from a moderately slender rhizome. Culms erect or geniculately ascending, 1/3–4 ft. high, compressed, slender, branched at the base or simple, up to 8-noded with the lower internodes short, minutely scaberulous below the inflorescence or quite glabrous and smooth. Leaf-sheaths compressed and keeled, glabrous or the lower loosely bearded at the mouth, smooth, the lower overlapping, the upper shorter than the internodes; ligule reduced to a densely ciliolate rim; blade linear, gradually passing into the sheath and tapering upwards to a subpungent tip, 1 1/2–12 in. long, folded or involute, up to 2 1/2 lin. wide when opened out, erect, rather rigid, glabrous or sparsely pilose towards the base, scaberulous near the apex or smooth. False spike cylindric, dense, flexuous or straight, pallid or purplish, 2/3–4 in. long, 2–3 1/2 lin. wide (exclusive of the bristles); rhachis finely ribbed, minutely hispidulous and scaberulous, closely studded with the minute clavate stumps of the deciduous involucres; involucres sessile, slightly spreading; bristles 5 to 10 to each involucre, very slender, scaberulous, of unequal length, free to the base, glabrous or rarely the inner with a few scattered hairs, pallid or purplish, one or two stouter than the rest and up to 7 lin. long, the remainder shorter and up to 4 lin. long. Spikelets usually solitary, sessile within the involucre, lanceolate or lanceolate-oblong, subobtuse and mucronate, 1 3/4–2 1/2 lin. long, glabrous. Lower glume absent, or oblong, truncate, 1/4– 1/2 lin. long, hyaline, nerveless; upper oblate or oblong, truncate, 1/3– 1/2 lin. long, hyaline, nerveless or 1-nerved. Lower floret barren and reduced to the valve: valve oblate or broadly elliptic or ovate at the base, usually with an acuminate-aristate tip from half as long to as long as the base, up to 1 3/4 lin. long, thinly membranous, minutely scaberulous at the tip, 1–3-nerved; valvule suppressed. Upper floret hermaphrodite, lanceolate or lanceolate-oblong, obtuse or subacute, mucronate: valve when flattened elliptic-oblong, obtuse or acute, as long as the spikelet, mucronate with the mucro up to 1/2 lin. long, membranous, minutely scaberulous towards the apex, 5-nerved; valvule lanceolate-oblong, obtuse, as long as the valve, membranous. Lodicules 0 or very minute. Anthers 1–1 1/4 lin. long, with glabrous or sparingly penicillate tips. Styles free or connate at the base. Grain oblong, dorsally compressed, about 3/4 lin. long.