Echinochloa colona |
Echinochloa esculenta |
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awnless barnyard grass, jungle rice, jungle ricegrass, or jungle-rice, small barnyard grass, watergrass |
Japanese millet |
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Habit | Plants annual; erect or decumbent, cespitose or spreading, rooting from the lower cauline nodes. | Plants annual. |
Culms | 10-70 cm; lower nodes glabrous or hispid, hairs appressed; upper nodes glabrous. |
80-150 cm tall, 4-10 mm thick, glabrous. |
Sheaths | glabrous; ligules absent, ligule region frequently brown-purple; blades 8-22 cm long, 3-6(10) mm wide, mostly glabrous, sometimes hispid, hairs papillose-based on or near the margins. |
glabrous; ligules absent, ligule region sometimes pubescent; blades 10-50 cm long, 5-25 mm wide. |
Panicles | 2-12 cm, erect, rachises glabrous or sparsely hispid; primary branches 5-10, 0.7-2(4) cm, erect to ascending, spikelike, somewhat distant, without secondary branches, axes glabrous or sparsely hispid, hairs 1.5-2.5 mm, papillose-based. |
7-30 cm, dense, rachis nodes densely hispid, hairs papillose-based, internodes scabrous; primary branches 2-5 cm, erect or spreading, simple or branched, often incurved at maturity, nodes hispid, hairs papillose-based, internodes usually scabrous; longer pedicels 0.5-1 mm. |
Spikelets | 2-3 mm, disarticulating at maturity, pubescent to hispid, hairs usually not papillose-based, tips acute to cuspidate. |
3-4 mm long, 2-2.5 mm wide, not or only tardily disarticulating at maturity, obtuse to shortly acute, purplish to blackish-brown at maturity. |
Lower glumes | about 1/2 as long as the spikelets; upper glumes about as long as the spikelets; lower florets usually sterile, occasionally staminate; lower lemmas unawned, similar to the upper glumes; lower paleas subequal to the lemmas; upper lemmas 2.6-2.9 mm, not or scarcely exceeding the upper glumes, elliptic, coriaceous portion rounded distally, passing abruptly into a sharply differentiated, membranous, soon-withering tip; anthers 0.7-0.8 mm. |
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Upper glumes | narrower and shorter than the upper lemmas; lower florets sterile; lower lemmas usually unawned; lower paleas shorter and narrower than the lemmas; upper lemmas longer and wider than the upper glumes, broadly ovate to ovate-orbicular, shortly apiculate, exposed distally at maturity; anthers 1-1.2 mm. |
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Caryopses | 1.2-1.6 mm, whitish; embryos 63-83% as long as the caryopses. |
1.2-2.3 mm, brownish; embryos 84-96% as long as the caryopses. |
2n | = 54. |
= 54. |
Echinochloa colona |
Echinochloa esculenta |
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Distribution |
AL; AR; AZ; CA; FL; GA; IL; KS; KY; LA; MA; MD; MO; MS; MT; NC; NJ; NM; OK; OR; PA; SC; TN; TX; VA; VT; WA; HI; PR; Virgin Islands
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CA; FL; MO; NY; HI |
Discussion | Echinochloa colona is widespread in tropical and subtropical regions. It is adventive and weedy in North America, growing in low-lying, damp to wet, disturbed areas, including rice fields. The unbranched, rather widely-spaced panicle branches make this one of the easier species of Echinochloa to recognize. Hitchcock (1913) considered that 'colonum' was a non-declining contraction, but dictionaries of Linnaeus' time treated it as a declining adjective. Because Linnaeus was the first to name the species (as "Panicum colonum"), it seems best to follow the practice considered correct in his day; hence "E. colona". (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Echinochloa esculenta was derived from E. crus-galli in Japan, Korea, and China. It is cultivated for fodder, grain, or birdseed. It has sometimes been included in E. frumentacea, from which it differs in its brownish caryopses and longer pedicels. Hybrids between E. crus-galli and E. esculenta are fully fertile, but those with E. frumentacea are sterile. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Source | FNA vol. 25, p. 398. | FNA vol. 25, p. 402. |
Parent taxa | ||
Sibling taxa | ||
Synonyms | E. colonum | |
Name authority | (L.) Link | (A. Braun) H. Scholtz |
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