Citation: Willem., in Usteri, Neue Ann. der Bot. 18:11 (1796).

Synonymy: Not Applicable

Common name: Blue-grasses.

Description:
Perennial; leaf blades flat; ligule a ciliate membrane.

Inflorescence of digitate spike-like racemes which are subsessile at the summit of the stem; spikelets in pairs, 1 sessile and bisexual, 1 pedicellate and male or sterile; pedicels and articles opaque; glumes of fertile spikelets equal, thinly chartaceous, the first usually very obtuse, 2-keeled, with narrow sharply inflexed margins, the second boat-shaped, acutely keeled, 3-nerved; first lemma hyaline, nerveless, second (fertile) lemma reduced to a hyaline stipe passing into the awn; palea minute or 0; pedicellate spikelet unawned; the lowest 1-3 sessile spikelets on each raceme sterile and awnless.

Distribution:  About 15 species from the tropics and subtropics of Africa, Asia and Australia (S. T. Blake (1969) Proc. R. Soc. Qld 80:65-69).

Biology: No text

Key to Species:

1. First glume without a prominent subepical fringe of hairs; racemes 1.5-4 cm long (including the awns), less densely villous	D. affine 1.
1. First glume with a prominent subepical fringe of hairs; racemes 2.5 -7 cm long, densely villous	D. sericeum 2.

Author: Not yet available