Eragrostis viscosa (Retz.) Trin.

The spikelets resemble those of Eragrostis tenella from which Eragrostis viscose may be distinguished by the sticky secretions, denser panicle and glandular glumes and leaf-sheaths; but the boundary is not sharp and intermediates are frequently found. Asian Eragrostis viscose differs from the African in having shorter palea hairs and being generally less sticky and thus harder to separate from Eragrostis tenella.

Eragrostis viscose is eaten by cattle both fresh and dry.

Tufted annual; culms 10-40 cm high, erect. Leaf-blades flat, 4-10 cm long, 2-5 mm wide, sticky on the keel and margins towards the base; sheath sticky below the collar. Panicle ovate to narrowly oblong, 4-15 cm long, glabrous or pilose in the ails, the branches sticky from yellowish oblong glandular patches to which grains of sand and debris adhere. Spikelets 5-15-flowered, ovate-oblong, 1.4-4.5 mm long, yellowish to purplish, breaking up from the apex, the rhachilla fragile; glumes narrowly ovate, subequal, 0.6-1.2 mm long, the keel usually thickened by a linear sticky yellow gland, acute; lemmas oblong-elliptic, 0.7-1.4 mm long, glabrous, broadly obtuse, sometimes obscurely mucronate; palea-keels ciliate with hairs 0.1-0.2(-0.5) mm long; anthers 3, 0.2-03 mm long. Caryopsis narrowly ellipsoid, 0.5-0.7 mm long.

Africa, Himalaya, India.

Distribution: Kashmir; eastwards from Nigeria through India to Thailand and the Philippines, and southwards to South Africa; a few records from tropical America.

800 m

viscosa: viscid, sticky