Grass

Although widely distributed this species is nowhere very common. It favours damp places, ditches and the edges of paddy fields. It is quick growing and succulent, and in Australia it affords good fodder.

This species is a good forage grass.

Perennials; culm tufted, 30-100 cm tall, hairy at least below inflorescence, nodes pubescent. Blade glabrous, 4-20 cm long, 2-8 mm wide; sheath keeled, glabrous; ligule a ring of white hairs, 0.6-0.8 mm long. Inflorescence of racemose racemes, racemes few to many, rachis flattened, puberulent, ca. 0.5 mm wide; pedicel 1.5-2 mm long, bearing long stiff hairs, ca. 0.3 mm long, usually purplish; lower glume minute, surrounding callus; upper glume slightly shorter than spikelet; lower palea wanting; upper lemma pale, minutely rugose, ca. 2 mm long, with a hispidulous awn of ca. 0.5 mm long or less; anther ca. 1.1 mm long.India, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Indochina, Malesia and China. Taiwan, very common and limited to the central and southern parts of the island. It grows along ditches and the edges of paddy fields.

Annual; culms 20-100 cm high, erect or geniculately ascending. Leaf-blades 2-30 cm long, 2-4 mm wide. Inflorescence 4-20 cm long; racemes 2-10 cm long, the rhachis puberulous, triquetrous, bearing paired spikelets; pedicels commonly glabrous, those of a pair often fused below. Spikelets lanceolate, (2.5)3.4 mm long, thinly pubescent; lower glume absent; upper glume acute to acuminate; lower -floret represented only by a lemma; upper lemma with a mucro 0.3-0.5 mm long.

Annual or short-lived perennial. Culms erect or geniculately ascending, branching, 30–150 cm tall, nodes pubescent. Leaf sheaths keeled, glabrous; leaf blades linear, 8–20 × 0.2–0.8 cm, glabrous, apex acuminate. Inflorescence axis 10–20 cm; racemes several, 3–7 cm, loosely ascending, bare of spikelets proximally; spikelets mostly paired, single toward raceme apex; axis and rachis very slender, puberulous, pedicels usually without setae, those of a pair often partially connate. Spikelets lanceolate, 3–4 mm, herbaceous, sharply acute, basal swelling ca. 0.3 mm and often purplish; lower glume minute; upper glume and lower lemma 5-veined, pilose with appressed silky hairs, lower palea absent; upper lemma rugulose-punctulate, mucro 0.3–0.5 mm. Fl. and fr. summer–autumn. 2n = 36.

Distribution: Pakistan (Sind); tropical Africa; throughout Southeast Asia; introduced in tropical America.

Fl. & Fr. Per.: May and again in August-October.

Streams, moist places. Fujian, Guangdong, Hainan, Taiwan [India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, New Guinea, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam; Australia; introduced in Africa, tropical America].

Agrostis procera Retz., Obs. Bot. 4: 19. 1786.

Agrostis procera Retzius, Observ. Bot. 4: 19. 1786; A. ramosa (Retzius) Poiret; Eriochloa annulata (Flüggé) Kunth; E. hackelii Honda; E. ramosa (Retzius) Kuntze; Milium ramosum Retzius; Paspalum annulatum Flüggé.