Open Herbarium - Echinochloa colonum

Echinochloa colonum (L.) Link
Family: Poaceae Awnless Barnyard Grass [Panicum colonum L.] Linda Ann Vorobik and Hana Pazdírková, Illustrators	Flora of North America Resources P.W Michael Plants annual; erect or decumbent, cespitose or spreading, rooting from the lower cauline nodes. Culms 10-70 cm; lower nodes glabrous or hispid, hairs appressed; upper nodes glabrous. Sheaths glabrous; ligules absent, ligule region frequently brown-purple; blades 8-22 cm long, 3-6(10) mm wide, mostly glabrous, sometimes hispid, hairs papillose-based on or near the margins. Panicles 2-12 cm, erect, rachises glabrous or sparsely hispid; primary branches 5-10, 0.7-2(4) cm, erect to ascending, spikelike, somewhat distant, without secondary branches, axes glabrous or sparsely hispid, hairs 1.5-2.5 mm, papillose-based. Spikelets 2-3 mm, disarticulating at maturity, pubescent to hispid, hairs usually not papillose-based, tips acute to cuspidate. Lower glumes about 1/2 as long as the spikelets; upper glumes about as long as the spikelets; lower florets usually sterile, occasionally staminate; lower lemmas unawned, similar to the upper glumes; lower paleas subequal to the lemmas; upper lemmas 2.6-2.9 mm, not or scarcely exceeding the upper glumes, elliptic, coriaceous portion rounded distally, passing abruptly into a sharply differentiated, membranous, soon-withering tip; anthers 0.7-0.8 mm. Caryopses1.2-1.6 mm, whitish; embryos 63-83% as long as the caryopses. 2n = 54. Echinochloa colona is widespread in tropical and subtropical regions. It is adventive and weedy in North America, growing in low-lying, damp to wet, disturbed areas, including rice fields. The unbranched, rather widely-spaced panicle branches make this one of the easier species of Echinochloa to recognize. Hitchcock (1913) considered that colonum was a non-declining contraction, but dictionaries of Linnaeus' time treated it as a declining adjective. Because Linnaeus was the first to name the species (as Panicum colonum), it seems best to follow the practice considered correct in his day; hence E. colona. (See also Nicolson 1986.)
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