Neil Snow

Plants annual or weakly perennial. Culms 5-170 cm, prostrate to erect; compressed, often branching; internodes hollow. Sheaths glabrous or scabrous; ligules 2-8 mm, membranous, attenuate, becoming lacerate at maturity; blades 3-50 cm long, 2-7 mm wide, glabrous or scabrous, those of the flag leaves sometimes exceeding the panicles. Panicles (1.5)10-105 cm long, 0.5-22 cm wide, with 3-35 racemose branches, bases of the panicles sometimes remaining enclosed in the upper leaf sheaths at maturity; branches 1.5-20(22) cm, ascending to reflexed. Spikelets 5-12(14) mm, with 6-20 florets. Lower glumes 1-3(4.9) mm; upper glumes 1.8-5.5 mm; lemmas 2-6 mm, sometimes with a dark spot near the base, apices acute to truncate, sometimes emarginate to bifid, unawned, mucronate, or awned; paleas somewhat sericeous along the veins; anthers 1-3, 0.2-2.7 mm. Caryopses 0.8-2.4 mm, elliptic to ovate or obovate. 2n = 20.

Diplachne fusca grows in warm areas throughout the world. The two American subspecies, Diplachne fusca subsp. uninervia and Diplachne fusca subsp. fascicularis, are usually distinct, but they intergrade repeatedly with Diplachne fusca subsp. fusca.