Viper Grass

Duthie does not rate this species very highly as a fodder grass but in Sind it is said to be a favourite food of buffaloes. It is a very common weed of cultivation.

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.

Loosely tufted annual; culms up to 112 cm high, slender, usually straggling and ascending from a decumbent base, often rooting at the lower nodes. Leaves glandular especially on the sheaths; leaf-blades 4.5-28 cm long, 4-8 mm wide, finely pointed. Inflorescence 8-34 cm long, linear or elliptic-oblong to pyramidal; spikes 0.6-5(7) cm long, stiff, ascending at first, reflexing and deciduous at maturity. Spikelets 1-3-flowered, narrowly wedge-shaped, 5.7-9 mm long, closely over-lapping on the flattened, narrowly green-winged rhachis; glumes narrowly elliptic with caudate curving tips, 6.1-8.2 mm long, coriaceous, asymmetric, usually over-lapping on the abaxial side and obscuring the florets, glandular along the keel; lemmas narrowly ovate, 2.1-2.9 mm long, appressed pilose along the lateral nerves and on the lower half of the back around the central nerve, acute to emarginate, mucronulate; palea appressed pilose on the flaps alongside the keels.

Fujian, Yunnan [native to India, Africa, and Madagascar].

Distribution: Pakistan (N.W.F.P.); South Africa, through tropical Africa to Egypt; Iraq to India.

Fl. & Fr. Per. May-October.

Dry open places, an introduced weed; ca. 1100 m.

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