Echinochloa crus-pavonis

Tufted annual or perennial. Culms geniculately ascending, to 200 cm high. Leaves glabrous; blade flat, 15–60 cm long and 5–25 mm wide, margins sometiems undulate. Panicle 1–30 cm long, fully exserted from upper sheath at maturity, not or rarely purple-pigmented; primary branches 6–20, spreading from main axis and drooping to some extent, 3–15 cm long, at least some (usually the lower) secondarily branched, scabrous, with several bristles subtending each group of spikelets. Spikelets 2–3(–3.5) mm long (excluding awns); lower glume 3–5-nerved, ovate, c. 1–1.5 mm long, hairy, acute; upper glume 5-nerved, as long as spikelet (excluding awns), acuminate but hardly awned, dorsally rounded, bristly along the nerves, usually glabrous or nearlo so between nerves; lower floret neuter (rarely male); lower lemma equal to upper glume but flat, long-acuminate and/or with an awn to 8 mm long, palea slightly shorter than body of lemma, membranous; upper lemma subequal to spikelet, dorsally rounded, smooth, pale, tapered rather abruptly to the slender often recurved membranous apical point 0.5–1 mm long. Flowers Feb.–Apr. (2 records).