Bearded Sprangletop

It is usually found in littoral regions.

Buffaloes are very fond of this grass.

Culm tufted. Blade linear, needle-like, about 12 cm long by 1 mm wide; ligule hyaline, about 2 mm long, tongue-shaped. Inflorescence a contracted panicle, about 10 cm long. Spikelets several-flowered, shortly pedicelled, about 6 mm long by 2-2.2 mm wide; glumes chartaceous, conspicuously 1-nerved, lanceolate, acute; lowest lemma chartaceous, 3-5 mm long, broadly lanceolate, 3-nerved, 2-toothed, margins inrolled, basal part with short silky hairs; midrib prolonged into a short awn of about 1.5 mm long; palea elliptical, chartaceous, 2-keeled, siliceous on keels; anther about 0.5 mm long. Caryopsis about 2 mm long; embryo 1/3 the length of the caryopsis.

Aquatic or semi-aquatic rhizomatous perennial; culms 60-150 cm high, rooting and branching from the lower nodes. Leaf-blades tough, linear with filiform tips, 25-55 cm long, up to 5 mm wide, inrolled or rarely flat, scabrid, grey-green with a broad white central nerve. Inflorescence 20-35 cm long; racemes 10-30, slender, 7-15 cm long, more or less straight. Spikelets 6-11-flowered; narrowly elliptic to elliptic, 8-15 mm long, slightly overlapping, grey-green or olive-green; glumes keeled, scabrid on the keels, the lower lanceolate to narrowly lanceolate, 2.1-4.6 mm long, acute or acuminate, the upper narrowly oblong, 3.3-7.4 mm long, acute or obtuse and minutely mucronate; lemmas narrowly oblong, 3.2-5.9 mm long, pilose on the lower part of the nerves, 2- or more toothed and mucronate or shortly awned from the sinus (the awn 0.3-1.6 mm long). Caryopsis dorso-ventrally flattened.

Widely distributed in India, extending to Egypt and Tropical and South Africa through Southeast Asia to Australia.

Distribution: Pakistan (Sind & Punjab); tropical and subtropical regions of the Old World and Australia.

Fl. & Fr. Per. March-November.

Festuca fusca L., Sp. Pl. ed. 2. 109. 1763.
Leptochloa fusca (L.) Kunth, Rev. Gram. l: 91. 1829; Honda, Monogr. Poac. Jap. 148. 1930.
Triodia formosana Honda, Bot. Mag. Tokyo 41: 12. 1927, Monogr. Poac. Jap. 114. 1930.