Acrachne Chiov. in Annuar. R. 1st. Bot. Roma. 8:361. 1908. Sultan & Stewart, Grasses W. Pak. 2:251.1959; Bor, Grasses Burma Ceyl. Ind. Pak. 487. 1960; Bor in Rech.f., Fl. Iran. 70: 438. 1970.
Annual. Leaf-blades broadly linear, flat; ligule a ciliate membrane. Inflorescence open, composed of a number of spikes arranged subdigitately or spread along a central axis. Spikelets several-many-flowered, oblong with a serrate outline, laterally compressed, subsessile on the slender flattened rhachis, the lemmas disarticulating from below upwards, paleas persistent on the rhachilla, but often the spikelet falling wholly or in part when only a few lemmas have been shed; glumes 1-nerved, keeled, thinly cartilaginous, shorter than the lemmas and falling before or soon after them; lemmas 3-nerved, keeled, cartilaginous, glabrous, lateral nerves fractionally excurrent, tip entire, aristulate. Grain ornamented, deeply sulcate on the hilar side, enclosed within a free hyaline pericarp which ruptures to release the grain.
A single species in the Old World tropics, introduced in the West Indies.
