Description

A tufted perennial grass with culms 1–3 m tall; a typical savanna grass of waysides and disturbed places from lowlands to montane elevations; common throughout the Region from Mauritania to N and S Nigeria, and generally dispersed elsewhere over tropical Africa and into S Africa, Madagascar, and introduced to tropical America.The grass is eaten by cattle with relish while growth is young (1, 2a,b, 3, 8, 10, 12, 13). The spikelets are pungently bristled which injure the muzzle of stock and thus inhibit browsing when in flower. Cattle have, however, been observed in Ghana searching for the foliage down below inflorescence level (4). Camels in Niger do not graze it at all (13).The haulm is ubiquitously used when mature for thatching (1, 5, 7, 8, 12, 14, 16). The culms are commonly used for making matting after the spikelets have fallen (8). They are much used for making zaanaa matting to enclose a compound (11, 15), the different stages of which have acquired a special vocabulary (5, 9): An unit piece is approximately 1.8 m wide by 2 m long, the culms being bound together by interwoven culms about 30 cm from the top and bottom. Units are then tied serially to make as long a screen or fence as may be required affixed vertically to a support. Dagaari of Ghana make characteristically square baskets using the younger stems (11).The culms have some value for producing paper-pulp (1, 8, 16).Chromosome number is reported as 2n = 40 (6).