Cenchrus pedicellatus(Trin.) Morrone

Kyasuma grass

WFO wfo-0000917388 Accepted WFO 2026-06 6 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–f · 2 observations

This species has been photographed under an open licence only 2 times, so some figures below are different views of the same plant, taken on the same day, rather than different individuals. They are usually different parts of it: the leaf, the flower, the bark.

Cenchrus pedicellatus, photographed by S.MORE
fig. a S.MORE, CC0 1.0 / 2018-06-16 / obs. 164170477

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Native range 32 botanical countries

Regions where Cenchrus pedicellatus is native: Benin, Burkina, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sudan-South Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Zambia, Andaman Is., Assam, Bangladesh, East Himalaya, India, Myanmar, West Himalaya BeninBurkinaCameroonCentral African RepublicChadCongoEritreaEthiopiaGambiaGhanaGuineaGuinea-BissauIvory CoastKenyaMadagascarMaliMauritaniaNigerNigeriaSenegalSudan-South SudanTanzaniaTogoZambiaAssamBangladeshEast HimalayaIndiaMyanmarWest Himalaya Cape VerdeAndaman Is.
Native distribution of Cenchrus pedicellatus, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows. Regions too small to draw at this scale are marked with a dot.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Benin BEN AFRICA
Burkina BKN
Cameroon CMN
Cape Verde CVI
Central African Republic CAF
Chad CHA
Congo CON
Eritrea ERI
Ethiopia ETH
Gambia GAM
Ghana GHA
Guinea GUI
Guinea-Bissau GNB
Ivory Coast IVO
Kenya KEN
Madagascar MDG
Mali MLI
Mauritania MTN
Niger NGR
Nigeria NGA
Senegal SEN
Sudan-South Sudan SUD
Tanzania TAN
Togo TOG
Zambia ZAM
Andaman Is. AND ASIA-TROPICAL
Assam ASS
Bangladesh BAN
East Himalaya EHM
India IND
Myanmar MYA
West Himalaya WHM

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Where it actually grows measured, from 229 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 11.5 °C 18.6 °C 20.8 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 29.7 °C 35.7 °C 39.7 °C
Annual rainfall 582 mm 1,125 mm 1,937 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 0 mm 6 mm 49 mm

It is not found anywhere that gets close to freezing. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 229 research-grade observations of Cenchrus pedicellatus that carry a coordinate, and this is the range those places actually span. The 5th and 95th percentiles are used rather than the minimum and maximum, because a single cultivated specimen in a heated conservatory should not widen a tropical plant's range to the Arctic.

This is not a hardiness zone. A USDA zone is the average annual extreme minimum temperature. The figure above is the mean daily minimum of the coldest month, which is a different quantity and is typically far warmer. Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one.

Also published as 17 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Eriochaeta densiflora Fig. & De Not.
  • Eriochaeta reversa Fig. & De Not.
  • Eriochaeta secundiflora Fig. & De Not.
  • Panicum araneosum Edgew.
  • Pennisetum amoenum Hochst. ex A.Rich.
  • Pennisetum araneosum Edgew.
  • Pennisetum densiflorum (Fig. & De Not.) T.Durand & Schinz
  • Pennisetum dillonii Steud.
  • Pennisetum implicatum Steud.
  • Pennisetum intertextum Schltdl.
  • Pennisetum lanuginosum var. majus Hochst.
  • Pennisetum notarisii T.Durand & Schinz
  • Pennisetum pedicellatum Trin.
  • Pennisetum pedicellatum subsp. unispiculum Brunken
  • Pennisetum pedicellatum var. pallidum Chiov.
  • Pennisetum pedicellatum var. pubirhachis Berhaut
  • Pennisetum secundiflorum (Fig. & De Not.) T.Durand & Schinz

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. USDA PLANTS Database. common name, checklist symbol PEPE24. public domain. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
  4. Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.