Common name: Crowsfoot Grass
Eleusine indica (L.) Gaertn. APNI*
Description: Coarse, tufted annual or perennial to 0.8 m high; culms ascending or prostrate, branching at the base, striate, compressed, up to 8-noded, smooth.
Leaves with sheath smooth, flattened and keeled, striate, becoming loose, often with tubercle-based hairs to 5 mm long; ligule a rim of short hairs on a short membrane, often ciliate at the sides, 0.5–1 mm long; blade flat or folded, 3–8 mm wide, minutely scabrous on margins, the hairs on the sheath sometimes extending to the blades.
Spikelets sessile, 3–5 mm long. Glumes unequal, membranous, lower 1.5–3 mm long, narrow ovate, obtuse; upper 2.5–4 mm long, lanceolate or ovate to lanceolate, acute. Lemmas lanceolate, rather acute, 3-nerved, 2.5–4.5 mm long.
Flowering: summer.
Distribution and occurrence: Common weed of lawns, horticultural crops, and disturbed areas. Native of Afr. & India.
NSW subdivisions: *NC, *CC, *SC, *NT, *ST, *NWS, *CWS, *SWS, *NWP, *SWP, *LHI
Other Australian states: *Qld *Vic. *W.A. *S.A. *N.T.
Can be poisonous to stock.
Text by S. W. L. Jacobs & S. M. Hastings (1993) Taxon concept: Flora of NSW 4 (1993)
APNI* Provides a link to the Australian Plant Name Index (hosted by the Australian National Botanic Gardens) for comprehensive bibliographic data ***The AVH map option provides a detailed interactive Australia wide distribution map drawn from collections held by all major Australian herbaria participating in the Australian Virtual Herbarium project.
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