Plant descriptions ²

Perennial, from a slender creeping wiry rhizome. Culms geniculately ascending, solitary or fascicled, up to 3 1/2 ft. long, very slender or filiform, wiry, terete, simple or branched from the upper nodes, many-noded, glabrous and smooth, or minutely pubescent. Leaf-sheaths at length shorter than the internodes, tight, glabrous and smooth, mostly 1–2 in. long; ligule a minutely ciliolate rim; blade linear or lanceolate-linear, tapering to a hard subacute tip, 1/2–2 in. long, flat or involute (at least when dry), up to 2 lin. wide when opened out, rigid, glabrous or puberulous, scaberulous on the cartilaginous margins. Panicle flexuous, 1–4 1/2 in. long, loose, or more or less contracted; rhachis very slender, nearly smooth; branches capillary, flexuous, asperulous, divided towards their tips, the lower paired or semi-verticillate, up to 2 in. long; pedicels 3/4–4 lin. long, with several stiff white hairs at their tips. Spikelets narrowly lanceolate and acuminate, or narrowly oblong and gaping, 2 1/4–3 1/2 lin. long, light brown. Glumes thinly chartaceous or membranous, glabrous or the lower with a few short stiff hairs above the middle; lower narrowly ovate, acute, 1–1 1/2 lin. long, minutely scaberulous; upper narrowly lanceolate, acuminate, with a finely acute tip, nearly as long as the spikelet. Lower floret ♂: valve similar to the upper glume, but as long as the spikelet; valvule linear-lanceolate, obtuse, 1 1/2 lin. long, thinly membranous. Upper floret linear-lanceolate, turning pale brown: callus truncate, bearded with short white hairs; valve 3/4–1 lin. long (entire portion), 2-lobed, with each lobe 1/4– 1/2 lin. long and tapering into a capillary scaberulous bristle 1–1 1/2 lin. long, membranous, finely 5–7-nerved, glabrous except for a dense tuft of white hairs 1 1/2–2 lin. long from near each margin about the middle; awn 2 1/2–3 1/2 lin. long; column brown, 1/4– 1/2 lin. long; valvule obtuse, 1–1 1/4 lin. long, thinly membranous. Anthers 1/2– 3/4 lin. long.

Elevation ²

1 000 - 2 000 m.

Similar species ²

Syn. Danthonia lasiantha ; Trichopteryx brevifolia.

Reference ²

Flora Capensis, Vol 7, page 310, (1900) Author: (By O. STAPF.)
Flora of Tropical Africa, Vol 10, page 1, (1937) Author: (By C. E. HUBBARD.)

Sources and Credits

1. (c) Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of Natural History, Department of Botany, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC-SA), https://collections.nmnh.si.edu/services/media.php?env=botany&irn=10673058
2. (c) Romer Rabarijaona, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA)

More Info

• iNat taxon page
• African Plants - a photo guide
• Biodiversity Heritage Library
• BOLD Systems BIN search
• eFloras.org
• Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF)
• HOSTS - a Database of the World's Lepidopteran Hostplants
• IPNI (with links to POWO, WFO, and BHL)
• SEINet Symbiota portals
• Tropicos
• World Flora Online

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