Trees & Plants

Crab grass

Huibinbi

Eleusine indica (L.) Gaertn.

Common in open areas The seeds, when cooked, are edible and sometimes used as a famine food. In traditional medicine, the whole plant is used as a depurative, diuretic, febrifuge, laxative and sudorific. It is also used in treating liver complaints. Th reat & damage: The plant is

Details

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uses: The seeds, when cooked, are edible and sometimes used as a famine food. In traditional medicine, the whole plant is used as a depurative, diuretic, febrifuge, laxative and sudorific. It is also used in treating liver complaints. Th reat & damage: The plant is a principal weed over 42 countries posing threat to several major crops including rice, maize, sweet potato, banana, pineapple, mango, cacao and vegetables.
family: Poaceae
synonym: Cynosurus indicus L.
description: Annual herbs; culms tufted. × Leaves 5-25 0.4-0.6 cm, linear, base as rounded, blunt at apex, often folded; sheaths keeled, softly pilose; ligule truncate, membranous. Spikes digitate or subdigitate, Th 2-18, each 3-8 cm long. Spikelets 4-6 mm long, ovate or oblong, 3-6-flowered. Lower × glume 1.5-2.5 0.5-1 mm, lanceolate, keeled, chartaceous, 3-nerved; upper glume × 2-3 1 mm, oblong, keeled, chartaceous, × 5-nerved; lemmas 2-3 1.5-2 mm, ovate- oblong, chartaceous, 3-nerved, sub acute; × paleas 2-2.5 1 mm, oblong-elliptic, 2-keeled, 2-nerved. Stamens 3; anthers ca. 0.5 mm long. Ovary ca. 0.5 mm long, elliptic; stigmas ca. 0.5 mm long, violet. Caryopsis sub globose, deeply grooved on one side, transversely rugose.
native range: Africa and temperate and tropical Asia
distribution: The tropics and sub-tropics
english names: Crab grass · Goose grass
flowering fruiting: Th roughout the year
occurrence maldives: Common in open areas