T.A. Cope (1995) Poaceae Flora of Somalia 4: 148-270
Plants tufted perennials; culms to 200 cm tall, often becoming decumbent and rambling or developing into stout, woody stolons. Inflorescences subdigitate or with a central axis up to 3 cm long; rames 3-20, shortly pedunculate, 2-8 cm long,pilose. Sessile spikelets narrowly elliptic, 3-4.5 mm long; lower glumes firmly cartilaginous, glabrous or pilose below midlength, glossy, with a deep circular pit; awns 15-25 mm long; pedicellate spikelets glabrous, with 0-4 pits.
Bothriochloa insculpta grows in grassy plains, open woodland, and cultivated ground at 300-1650 m. It is known from regions N1-2 and S1-3 f the Flora of Somalia and elsewhere in Africa plus tropical Arabia.
It is very similar to the Asian Bothriochloa pertusa (L.) A.Camus but De Wet & Higgins (1963) showed that the two do not inbreed and that African material resembling it should be regarded as a variant of Bothriochloa insculpta.