Pearl Millet

This is a cultivated species grown for both grain and forage, and is especially suited to regions with a short growing season (Bulrush Millet, Pearl Millet).

For a discussion of the complex nomenclatural problems in this species see Terrell in Taxon 25:297-304. 1976.

Annual. Culms robust, up to 3 m tall, densely pubescent at nodes and below inflorescence. Leaf sheaths loose, smooth; leaf blades 20–100 × 2–5 cm, both surfaces and margins scabrous; base subcordate; ligule 2–3 mm. Inflorescence linear to broadly elliptic, dense, 40–50 × 1.5–2.5 cm; axis densely pubescent; involucre persistent, enclosing 1–9 spikelets, basal stipe pubescent, 1–25 mm; bristles usually shorter than spikelets, almost glabrous to densely plumose. Spikeles obovate, 3.5–4.5 mm; lower glume minute, ca. 1 mm; upper glume 1.5–2 mm, 3-veined; lower floret staminate, lemma ca. 2.5 mm, 5-veined, margins membranous and ciliate, palea thinly papery, puberulous; upper lemma 5–7-veined, thinly papery, puberulous, margins ciliate, tip obtuse; anthers with a tuft of short hairs at tip. Fl. and fr. Sep–Oct. 2n = 14.

Cultivated. N and E China [native to Africa; widely introduced elsewhere].

Panicum glaucum Linnaeus, Sp. Pl. 1: 56. 1753; Alopec-urus typhoides N. L. Burman; Panicum americanum Linnaeus; Pennisetum americanum (Linnaeus) Leeke; P. americanum subsp. typhoideum Maire & Weiller; P. spicatum (Linnaeus) Körnicke var. typhoideum T. Durand & Schinz; P. typhoides (N. L. Burman) Stapf & C. E. Hubbard; P. typhoideum Richard, nom. illeg. superfl.