Plants  tufted perennial utp 20 120 cm tall. Leaves with attenuate bases. INflorescences narrowly olong, 5-40 cm long, bearing rames; rames 20-30 mm long, woolly villous with hairs 2-4 mm long;lowest pedicels swollen, the adjacent internodes very short. Sessile spikelets narrowly lanceolate, 4-7 mm long; lower glumes chartaceous, glabrous, without veins and concave between the keels, these sharplyinflexed throughout; upper lemmas awned; awns 5-9 mm long, almost straight, scarcely differentiated into column and limb. Pedicellate spikelets narrowly lanceolate, 4-7 mm long.

Cymbopogon schoenanthus grows on limestone hillsides and subdesert plans at 435-1475 m. It is known from regions N1-3 and C1 of the Flora of Somalia. It also grows from Africa north of the Shara and in Arabia. 

©The Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew. Reproduced with permission.