Setaria flavida (Retz.) Veldkamp

Nile and Mediterranean regions, Oases and eastern desert.

Old World tropics.

Panicum flavidum is eaten by horses and cattle and it produces a large quantity of grain that has been eaten by man in times of want. It is a shade-loving species found in forest undergrowth, roadside ditches and damp hollows, below 1000 m.

Terrestrial perennials; culm 40-60 cm tall, 1-2 mm thick, slender. Blade linear, to 30 cm long, 5-7 mm wide; ligule a ring of hairs, ca. 0.25 mm long. Panicle 8-25 cm long. Racemes 6-10, 1-2 cm long; rachis 0.5-0.8 mm broad, winged. Spikelets 3-4 mm long, imbricate, sessile, ovate-elliptic; lower glume 1.5-1.6 mm long, membranaceous, rounded-acute; upper glume slightly shorter than upper lemma, obovate, 7-veined, rounded or truncate with a mucronate tip; lower lemma elliptic, acute, 5-veined; upper lemma ovate, ca. 2 mm long, acuminate, granulate.

Tufted perennial; culms 10-120 cm high, erect or ascending from a prostrate base. Leaf-blades 8-30 cm long, 4-13 mm wide, flat or folded, blunt at the tip and sometimes hooded. Inflorescence 8-30 cm long; racemes 1-2.5(3) cm long, distant by 2-4 times their own length, their rhachis very narrowly winged from a triquetrous midrib, 0.5-0.8 mm wide, glabrous or minutely ciliate. Spikelets ovate, gibbously globose, 2-3 mm long; lower glume truncate or ± orbicular, a third to half as long as the spikelet; upper glume half to three-quarters as long as the spikelet; lower floret with a palea, its lemma as long as the spikelet the nerves not raised; upper lemma granulose.

Perennial. Culms tufted, slightly compressed, 30–100 cm tall from a decumbent base. Leaf sheaths strongly keeled, smooth; leaf blades linear-lanceolate, flat or folded, 5–30 × 0.5–1 cm, base subcordate and tuberculate-setose, apex abruptly acute; ligule ca. 0.5 mm. Inflorescence axis 5–20 cm; racemes 6–9, 1.5–2.5 cm, widely spaced; rachis ca. 0.5 mm wide, slightly winged, prolonged into a point. Spikelets plumply ovate, gibbous, 1.5–2.5 mm, milk-white or purplish; lower glume broadly ovate, ca. 1/2 as long as spikelet; upper glume 2/3–3/4 as long as spikelet, 7-veined; lower lemma as long as spikelet, 5-veined; upper lemma bony, granulate. Fl. and fr. Jul–Oct.

Tropical Asia.

Tropical Asia. Taiwan, naturalized in roadsides and open places at coastal areas.

Distribution: Pakistan (Punjab, N.W.F.P. & Kashmir); tropical Asia.

Guangdong, Guizhou, Hainan, Taiwan, Yunnan [Bhutan, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam; Australia, Indian Ocean Islands (Mauritius, Réunion), Pacific Islands].

100-900 m

Fl. & Fr. Per.: July-October.

Roadsides, field edges, moist open places; 100–1500 m.

Panicum flavidum Retz., Observ. Bot. 4: 14. 1786. Setaria flavidum (Retz.) Veldkamp, Blumea 39: 376. 1994.

Panicum flavidum Retzius, Observ. Bot. 4: 15. 1786; P. floridum Royle; P. granulare Lamarck; Setaria flavida (Retzius) Veldkamp.