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Electronic Flora of South Australia species Fact Sheet

Family: Poaceae
Eleusine tristachya

Citation: Lam., Tabl. Encycl. 1:203 (1792).

Synonymy: Cynosurus tristachyos Lam., Encycl. 2:188 (1786); E. coracana sensu J. Black, Fl. S. Aust. 518 (1948), non (L.) Gaertner. (Description from Willis (1970) A handbook to plants in Victoria edn 2,1).

Common name: American crows foot grass, goose grass.

Description:
Short-lived tufted perennial, to 30 cm high; leaf blades glabrous, 5-12 cm long, strongly keeled, c. 2 mm wide when flattened out, obtuse and more or less boat-shaped at the apex; ligule a short fimbriate collar c. 0.5 mm high.

Inflorescence a finger-like cluster of 2-4 rigidly diverging spikes at the apex of the culm; each spike to 25 mm long (often much less), 7-10 mm wide, sessile, sometimes purplish; spikelets 2-3 mm long, narrowly ovoid, several-flowered, hard, rigid, sessile and closely overlapping, disposed in 2 dense rows along one side of the broad rhachis which ends in a spikelet; glumes glabrous, rather obtuse, 1-nerved, unequal, the first c. 2 mm long, the second c. 2.5 mm long; lemma c. 3 mm long, keeled, acute, glabrous, 3-nerved.

Published illustration: Burbidge (1968) Australian grasses 2:pl. 56.

Distribution:  S.Aust.: NL, SL, SE.   Eastern States.   Native to South America.

Conservation status: naturalised

Flowering time: Dec. — June.


SA Distribution Map based
on current data relating to
specimens held in the
State Herbarium of South Australia

Biology: Confused in the literature with Indian millet (E. coracana). It occurs as a weed and is of no grazing value.

Author: Not yet available


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