Kelly W. Allred

Plants perennial; cespitose or stoloniferous. Culms 30-250 cm, with pithy internodes. Leaves basal or cauline, not aromatic; sheaths open; auricles absent; ligules membranous, sometimes also ciliate; bladesusually flat, convolute in the bud. Inflorescences terminal, panicles of subdigitate to racemosely arranged branches, each branch with (1)2-many rames, branches not subtended by modified leaves; rames with spikelets in heterogamous sessile-pedicellate pairs, internodes with a translucent, longitudinal groove, often villous on the margins; disarticulation in the rames, beneath the sessile spikelets. Spikeletsdorsally compressed; sessile spikelets with 2 florets; lower glumesrounded, several-veined, sometimes with a dorsal pit, margins clasping the upper glume; upper glumes somewhat keeled, 3-veined; lower florets hyaline scales, unawned; upper florets bisexual; upper lemmas with a midvein that usually extends into a twisted, geniculate awn, occasionally unawned; anthers 3. Pedicels similar to the internodes. Pedicellate spikelets reduced or well-developed, sterile or staminate, unawned. Caryopses lanceolate to oblong, somewhat flattened; hila punctate, basal; embryos about 1/2 as long as the caryopses. x = 10. Name from the Greek bothros, trench or pit, and chloë, grass, alluding either to the groove in the pedicels or to the pit in the lower glumes of some species.

T.A. Cope (1995) Bothriochloa. Flora of Somalia 4:256-257

Plants perennial grasses. Leaves sometimes aromatic; ligules membranous. Inflorescences non-leafy panicles of rames [spikelike branches of s-many sessile-pediclleate spikelet pairs that break up below the sessile spikelets at maturity]these sometimes in a digitate or subdigitate cluster, sometimes attached along an elongate central axis, occasionally the rames branche; rames with 8 or more spikelet pairs, with or without homogamous spikelet pairs at the base; internodes and pedicels linear, hyaline and translucent between the thickened margins. Sessile spikelets dorsally compressed; calluses very short, obtuse; lower glumes cartilaginous or firmly membranous, braodly convex to slightly concave on the back, sometimes with 1-3 circular pits, tips acute;  upper lemmas entire, each with a glabrous awn. Pedicellate spikelets well-developed, similar to the sessile spikelets or smaller. Caryopses oblong, slightly dorsally compressed.

Bothriochloa includes about 37 species. It is a pantropical genus. Two species are known from Somaliland and Somalia. A third, Bothriochloa pertusa, is sometimes reported from Africa. It is similar to Bothriochloa inscupta but more robust. 

Key to the species of Bothriochloa in Somaliland and Somalia.

Global distribution of Bothriochloa.

Note: GBIF records include introduced and cultivated plants. Consequently, the distribution shown often differs from statements about a taxon's native distribution.