Kaokochloa

Annual, tufted. Leaf blade linear-lanceolate; ligule a fringe of long hairs. Inflorescence a panicle, rather dense and contracted, branches single; rachis and branches grooved, densely villous, with a mixture of long, villous hairs and shorter, gland-tipped hairs; spikelets shortly pedicelled or subsessile, clustered on somewhat short branches. Spikelet not noticeably compressed, subglobose, disarticulating between glumes; glumes +/- equal, +/- equalling spikelet, subacute, 9-11-nerved, hairy, with long thin hairs mixed with shorter club-shaped, glandular hairs, awnless. Florets 3-6, bisexual, uppermost floret reduced, sterile, usually awnless; lowerlemma coriaceous, becoming indurated, densely hairy in lower half between nerves, 9-nerved, apex incurved and emarginate, each margin is lobed, sometimes with 1 or 2 shorter additional lobes, 2-5-awned, lobes usually black in colour, marginal lobes with large, flat awns, median lobes with smaller awns; awns straight, hairy; palea elliptic, thinly coriaceous, shallowly concave dorsally, keels somewhat thickened, densely fimbriate with short stiff bristles, margin membranous, inflexed, long villous at base. Lodicules 2, somewhat fleshy, wedge-shaped, with a somewhat truncate apex. Stamens 3. Ovary glabrous, obovate-cuneate; styles 2, plumose. Caryopsis obovoid.