Plant Description

The plant is an annual tufted grass; culms ascending, compressed, 5 to 60cm high; sheaths keeled, smooth except for a few short hairs on the margins; ligule membranous with jagged edge; blades 5 to 15 cm long, 3 to 4mm wide; spikes mostly two to seven, rarely one, 5 to 15 cm long, flat, straight or slightly incurved; rachis slender, margins slightly rough; rachilla separating at the joint above the glumes and between the florets; spikelets 2 to 4 mm long, three-five-flowered; glumes rather membranous, the lower 1- 1.5 mm long, pointed or tapering gradually to a point, with smooth keel, one-five nerved; lemmas similar in texture and shape to the glumes, ovate, sharply pointed or tapering gradually to a point, slightly rough on the keel toward the tip, the lateral nerves very slender, lemmas falling with the grain, palea somewhat rough on the keels; grain reddish brown to black; oblong-ovate, with conspicuous ridges’ (Ogbochukwu, 2005).