多穗雀稗

Perennials; culms ascending to erect, 30 to 100 cm tall, often branching; nodes with whitish hairs. Sheaths slightly keeled, hirsute; ligule membranaceous, ca. 1 mm long. Blades linear to lanceolate, rounded at base, 4-35 cm long, 2-20 mm wide, hariy, with a tuft of long white hairs at immediate base of ligiule. Inflorescence fully exserted at maturity. Main axis present, 7-20 cm long, smooth. Racemes 10- 30, alternate, lowermost one 5-8 cm long, others distally becoming shorter. Rachis flat, winged, straight to slightly zigzag at upper end, 0.5 mm wide. Spikelets overlapping, usually paired, evenly distributed along length of branch, elliptic to obovate, 1.2-1.4 mm long, 0.9-1 mm wide. Lower glume absent; upper glume elliptic to obovate, subequal to spikelet, 5-nerved, puberulent; lower floret neuter; lower lemma membranaceous, 3-nerved; palea of lower floret absent; upper lemma glabrous, smooth to irregulary striate, rounded abaxially, thickly coriaceous, with obscure nerves; palea flat to slightly convex, coriaceous, 2-nerved; anthers ca. 0.8 mm long.

Tropical South America and western Africa, naturalized elsewher in tropics. Taiwan, naturalized at the central part of the island, in moist places along radsides.