Setaria intermedia Roem. & Schult.

This weedy annual is recognized by its sprawling, tufted habit and coarsely rugose, orange-brown fertile floret. The spikelets are usually subtended only by a single bristle, but there are many aborted spikelets in the panicle, giving the appearance of more bristles below each fully developed spikelet.

Annual. Culms slender, geniculate at base and rooting from nodes, up to 60 cm tall, glabrous. Leaf sheaths usually loose, lower glabrous and smooth, upper papillose-pilose, margins densely ciliolate especially at mouth; leaf blades broadly linear, thin, 10–35 × 0.6–1 cm, papillose-hispid along the main veins, apex acuminate; ligule densely ciliate. Panicle contracted, narrowly lanceolate, 10–17 × 1–1.5 cm, lowest branches 1.5–2 cm, spikelets subtended by 1–2(–3 or more) bristles; axis scaberulous to puberulous; bristles 3–10 mm, stiff. Spikelets elliptic-ovate, 1.5–2 mm, acute; glumes thin, submembranous; lower glume broadly ovate, 1/3–1/2 as long as spikelet, obtuse or acute; upper glume 1/2–2/3 as long as spikelet, 5-veined; lower floret neuter; lower palea almost as long as lemma; upper lemma orange-brown at maturity, dorsally strongly convex, rugose. Fl. and fr. Jul.

Ascending annual, often decumbent below and rooting at the nodes; culms weak, 15-100 cm high. Leaf-blades broadly linear, 5-20 cm long, 2-10 mm wide, flaccid, not or indistinctly scabrid, but often with tubercle-based bristles along the main nerves. Panicle contracted, 3-12 cm long, narrowly lanceolate, branched at least below, the rhachis scaberulous to puberulous; bristles 3-10 mm long, stiff, obscurely scaberulous. Spikelets broadly elliptic, 1.5-2 mm long; lower glume obtuse or acute, one-third to half as long as the spikelet; upper glume half to two-thirds the length of the spikelet; lower floret barren, its palea almost as long as the lemma; upper lemma rugose, pallid to golden.

Distribution: Pakistan (Sind & Punjab); India, Burma and Sri Lanka; introduced to tropical Africa.

Fl. & Fr. Per.: September.

Roadsides, fields. Yunnan [Bhutan, India, Japan, Myanmar, Russia, Sri Lanka; E Africa].

Panicum tomentosum Roxburgh; Setaria tomentosa (Roxburgh) Kunth.