弯穗草 wan sui cao

Cynosurus retroflexus Vahl, Symb. Bot. 2: 20. 1791; Dine-bra brevifolia Steudel; D. retroflexa var. brevifolia (Steudel) T. Durand & Schinz.

Culms usually straggling from a decumbent base, much branched, rooting at lower nodes, infrequently erect, green or purplish green, up to 50 cm or more tall. Leaf sheaths glabrous or with scattered hairs; leaf blades linear, 3–25 × 0.3–0.5 cm, glabrous or thinly pilose, apex acuminate; ligule lacerate. Inflorescence 6–20 cm, narrowly elliptic-oblong to pyramidal, open; racemes 0.5–4 cm, stiff, ascending when young, reflexing and finally deciduous from the axis at maturity; rachis flattened, narrowly winged. Spikelets narrowly cuneate, florets 2–3; glumes narrowly elliptic with caudate diverging tips, 6–8 mm, keel scabrid, minutely glandular; lemmas greenish, narrowly ovate, 2–3 mm, lower part of veins appressed-pilose, acute to emarginate, mucronate; palea appressed-pilose on the flaps. Callus obtuse, glabrous. Anthers purplish red, ca. 0.3 mm. Fl. and fr. Nov–Dec.

Dry open places, an introduced weed; ca. 1100 m. Fujian, Yunnan [native to India, Africa, and Madagascar].