Common name
Aleman grass

Derivation
Echinochloa P.Beauv., Ess. Agrostogr. 53 (1812); from the Greek echinos (hedgehog) and chloe (grass), alluding to the echinate inflorescence branches.

polystachya- from the Greek polys (many) and stachys (ear of corn). Plants with many-branched culms or inflorescences.

Published in
Telopea 1: 44 (1975).

Habit
Perennial. Young shoots intravaginal. Culms decumbent, 100–300 cm tall, 7–15 mm diam., spongy, rooting from lower nodes. Mid-culm nodes swollen, glabrous or pubescent. Lateral branches branched. Leaf-sheaths glabrous on surface or hispid, with tubercle-based hairs. Ligule a fringe of hairs, 2–4 mm long. Leaf-blades 25–50 cm long, 20–35 mm wide. Leaf-blade midrib conspicuous. Leaf-blade surface glabrous. Leaf-blade margins spinulose.

Inflorescence
Inflorescence compound, a panicle of racemes. Racemes numerous, unilateral, 2–11 cm long. Central inflorescence axis 15–30 cm long. Rhachis subterete, ciliate on margins. Spikelet packing imbricate, 4-rowed. Raceme-bases brief, pilose.

Spikelets
Spikelets in threes, subequal. Pedicels 0.5–1 mm long, scabrous, tip discoid. Fertile spikelets 2-flowered, comprising 1 fertile floret, without rhachilla extension, ovate, dorsally compressed, gibbous, cuspidate, 4.5–6 mm long, falling entire.

Glumes
Glumes dissimilar, thinner than fertile lemma. Lower glume ovate, clasping, 1.9–4.2 mm long, 40–75% of length of spikelet, 5–7-nerved. Lower glume surface scabrous. Lower glume margins ciliate. Lower glume apex cuspidate. Upper glume ovate, 100% of length of spikelet, membranous, 5–7-nerved. Upper glume surface hispidulous, hairy on nerves. Upper glume apex cuspidate, muticous or awned. Upper glume awn 0–7.5 mm long.

Florets
Basal sterile floret 1, with palea. Lemma of lower sterile floret similar to upper glume, ovate, 100% of length of spikelet, membranous, 5-nerved, hispidulous, cuspidate, muticous or awned. Awn of lower sterile floret 2–15 mm long. Palea of lower sterile floret 100% of length of lemma, scabrous, adorned on keels. Fertile lemma elliptic, gibbous, 2.5–5 mm long, indurate, much thinner above, glossy. Lemma margins involute. Lemma apex obtuse, laterally pinched. Palea reflexed at apex, indurate. Anthers 3, 1.5–3.6 mm long, orange. Grain with adherent pericarp.

Continental Distribution:
Australasia, North America, South America.

Australian Distribution:
Northern Territory, Queensland.

Northern Territory: Darwin & Gulf. Queensland: Cook, North Kennedy, South Kennedy, Port Curtis.

Classification. (GPWG 2001):
Panicoideae

Notes
Introduced from South America. Flowers Mar.–May. A local cultivar (cv. Amity) is becoming established on the central Queensland coast.

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