Description

A perennial grass with long slender rhizomes, culms to 60 cm high, of sandy seashores, and occasionally on saline soils inland, from Mauritania to Dahomey, and in E Africa, and on tropical seashores generally.It is an important pan-tropical pioneer sand-binder colonising beach-heads down to high-water level and coastal sand-dunes (5), commonly recorded along the W African coastline (Senegal: 1, 4, 9; The Gambia: 3; Sierra Leone: 2, 6; Ghana: 8; Liberia, Dahomey, etc.) Its value as forage is described as being in Senegal only mediocre and this while young (1), but in Mauritania it provides good pasturage for all stock (7).People in Mauritania remove grain from ant-hill granaries in time of dearth and grind it for cooking into cakes (7).

Description

A perennial grass with long slender rhizomes, culms to 60 cm high, of sandy seashores, and occasionally on saline soils inland, from Mauritania to Dahomey, and in E Africa, and on tropical seashores generally.It is an important pan-tropical pioneer sand-binder colonising beach-heads down to high-water level and coastal sand-dunes (5), commonly recorded along the W African coastline (Senegal: 1, 4, 9; The Gambia: 3; Sierra Leone: 2, 6; Ghana: 8; Liberia, Dahomey, etc.) Its value as forage is described as being in Senegal only mediocre and this while young (1), but in Mauritania it provides good pasturage for all stock (7).People in Mauritania remove grain from ant-hill granaries in time of dearth and grind it for cooking into cakes (7).