Perennial, arising from a knotty base covered in silky scales; culms up to 60 cm long, hard, wiry, trailing. Leaf-blades narrowly lanceolate to ovate, 2-7 cm long, 4-20 mm wide, tuberculate-ciliate on the margins, setaceously acuminate. Inflorescence of 2-8 racemes, each 4-7 cm long; internodes pilose. Sessile spikelet linear to narrowly lanceolate, 5.6.5 mm long; lower glume rounded on the back, spinously muricate on the keels and sometimes also on the indistinct dorsal nerves; awn 8-15 mm long; anthers 3, 2.5-3.5 mm long. Pedicelled spikelet narrowly lanceo¬late, 4-5 mm long.

Fl. & Fr. Per.: June-September or October.

Type: Ethiopia, Schimper 1117 (K) and Quartin Dillon (P).

Distribution: Pakistan (Sind, Punjab, N.W.F.P. & Kashmir); tropical East Africa and Sudan through India to China and Thailand.

Andropogon prionodes is closely related to Andropogon lanceolatus (Roxb.) Hochst., a species confined to southern India, and is frequently misnamed as such (e.g. Hook. f., Fl. Brit. Ind. 7:143. 1896). The latter has the lower glume of the sessile spikelet almost flat on the back and strongly nerved.