A tufted perennial grass forming large, coarse tussocks, common on disturbed ground, roadsides, and overgrazed pasture.
Sporobolus pyramidalis (family Poaceae), one of the two species known as giant rat's tail grass, is a tufted grass native to Africa and Yemen. Some botanists now treat it as a variety of the widespread Sporobolus indicus, as S. indicus var. pyramidalis. It has many English names, including catstail dropseed, West Indian dropseed, smut grass and wire grass, and it has become a weed in eastern Australia.
Kew's Flora Zambesiaca records it widely in Botswana, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia and Zimbabwe, from about 600 to 2,300 metres, including on river terraces, in woodland and near dams. Records in the SEPASAL database describe it as a tough, unpalatable grass of low grazing value that is seldom grazed, though it is of good grazing value in the semi-arid north-east of Kenya. In Asia, the related S. indicus is used for brooms, hats and fans, and its grain is eaten in Bengal in times of scarcity. It is useful for erosion control but is feared as a weed.
Note on sources: this entry says livestock graze it, especially when young; PROSEA says S. indicus is valuable forage only when young, and SEPASAL calls S. pyramidalis tough and seldom grazed.
Sources: PROTA4U database (Plant Resources of Tropical Africa), which compiles records from Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, the Conservatoire et Jardin botaniques de Genève, FAO EcoCrop and other botanical databases; Wikipedia, "Sporobolus pyramidalis".
Grazed by livestock as forage, especially when young and tender.
Regarded as a fetish plant by some West African peoples; the Mambila of Adamawa, Nigeria, are documented as taking tribal oaths on it.
A wild grass of pastures and waste ground, also used for erosion control due to its deep, soil-stabilizing root system.