Description:

• Annual or perennial, sometimes rhizomatous, tufted to decumbent or floating
• Leaf blade usually expanded; ligule a fringe of hairs or 0
• Inflorescence of few to many spike-like racemes crowded or scattered on central axis, racemes usually 1-sided and dense, sometimes spike-like, rachis triquetrous; spikelets paired or clustered on short branchlets forming (2-)4 or more rows, subsessile or shortly pedicelled, adaxial
• Spikelet 1.5-7.0 mm long, dorsiventrally compressed, gibbous on one side and flat on other (plano-convex), ± hispidulous or hispid, rarely minutely softly hairy, cuspidate to awned, falling with glumes; glumes unequal, membranous; lower glume usually much smaller than upper, ovate, with a clasping base, usually distinctly 0-3-nerved, acute to acuminate, often mucronate; upper glume as long as spikelet, ovate, 5-7-nerved, nerves usually hispid, mucronate (cuspidate) or shortly awned
• Florets 2; lower floret male or sterile; lemma similar to upper glume, 5-nerved, awnless or awned; awn as long as or up to 3 x as long as lemma, palea hyaline or 0; upper floret bisexual; lemma firmer than glumes, coriaceous, smooth and shiny, glabrous, convex, entire, margins inrolled and clasping only edges of palea, awnless; palea similar to lemma, indurated with infolded margins, acute tip briefly reflexed and ± protuberant between lemma margins
• Lodicules 2, cuneate, fleshy
• Stamens 3
• Ovary glabrous; styles distinct, plumose above
• Caryopsis broadly ellipsoid, dorsally flattened
• x = 9 (high polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

• Echinochloa P.Beauv.
  • Palisot de Beauvois: 53 (1812)
  • Stapf: 384 (1898)
  • Stent: 263 (1924)
  • Chippindall: 358 (1955)
  • Launert: 69 (1970)
  • Clayton & Renvoize: 554 (1982)
  • Clayton & Renvoize: 280 (1986)
  • Clayton: 50 (1989)
  • Gibbs Russell et al.: 119 (1990)
  • Watson & Dallwitz: 354 (1994)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Species 30-40, tropical and warm temperate regions of the world
• Southern Africa: Species 9, widespread