Echinochloa crus-galli (L.) Beauv.   =Echinochloa crus-galli var. crus-galli   Poaceae (Grass Family)                                                                             Old World   Water Grass   Common Barnyard Grass

                                        August Photo

Plant Characteristics:  Coarse annual with stiffly erect or decumbent-spreading stems, these most 3-10 dm. long; culms glabrous, the nodes slightly swollen; sheaths compressed, glabrous; blades mostly 0.3-3 cm. broad, with prominent midrib, panicles mostly 10-25 cm. long, with usually 5-25 appressed or spreading branches, the longer branches rebranched, these with stout often papilla-based setae; spikelets broadly ovate or ellipsoid, the second glume and lemma of the lower floret variously scabrous and hispid, may be awnless but if awned some awns at least 16 mm. long; lemma of the lower floret awnless; palea of lower floret well developed, more than half as along as lemma; seed strongly convex on one side, flat on other face, broad below and narrow toward apex, hard and shiny.

Habitat:  A weed of waste places and damp cult. ground, mostly below 2000 ft.; Santa Catalina Id. July-Oct.

Name:  Greek, echinos, hedgehog, and chloa, grass, referring to the echinate spikelets.  (Munz, Flora So. Calif. 963).  Crusgalli means cock's foot.  (Crockett 97).  Latin, crus, leg and Latin, gallus, cock.  Leg of a cock.  (John Johnson, who says the application is not evident to him).

General:  Occasional in the study area.  Photographed at 23rd Street and along Back Bay Dr.  (my comments).      Seeds are cultivated in Asia and Africa for human food. (Ref. not recorded).      This plant has been known to absorb toxic amounts of nitrates where fertilizer has been spread on the ground.  (Kirk 187).       Found to accumulate free nitrates in quantities capable of causing death or distress in cattle.  (Fuller 385).      One of the most troublesome weeds in Calif. rice fields.  This grass was present in Calif. when the rice industry first started.  Watergrass is a prolific seeder, it having been estimated that a single plant may produce as many as 40,000 seeds.  (Robbins et al. 75).      It has been estimated that if uncontrolled, E. crus-galli would cause up to 80% loss to a dry bean crop.  (ref. not recorded).     Echinochloa species have been known to cause hay fever and asthma.  (Fuller 383).      In crop rotations, residues of a previous crop may influence the following year's crop.  Sorghum bicolor leaves a residue of plant material that reduces the germination of wheat seedlings.  This residue also inhibits the growth of two summer annual weeds, E. crus-galli and E. colonum.  (Fuller 365).      E. crus-galli is listed in Dr. Alden Craft's Modern Weed Control as one of the world's ten worst weeds.  (Crockett 97).       All species are grazed by stock but usually grow in sparse stands or in situations where they cannot well be utilized.  E. crus-galli is occasionally cut for hay.  E. crus-galli var. frumentacea, Japanese millet, has been advertised by seedsmen in this country as a billion-dollar grass and recommended for forage.  It has some forage value, but requires considerable moisture to produce abundantly, and is rather too succulent for hay.  (Hitchcock 711).       The Tubatulabal Indians of the southern Sierra Nevada region used the seeds of water grass for food; the grass was cut and the seeds dried in place on the severed stems. (Campbell 164).      The length of the awns was a determining factor in deciding which var. of E. crus-galli one had before the 1993 Jepson Manual.  Now all var. of this species are included within E. crus-galli, including E. c. var. frumentacea.   (my comment).         About 20 species of warm regions.  (Munz, Flora So. Calif. 963).       

Text Ref: Hickman, Ed. 1252; Mason 153; Munz, Flora So. Calif.  964; Robbins et al. 75; Roberts 46. 

Photo Ref:  Oct 1 83 # 12; Sept 2 83 # 3; May 3 84 # 10,11; Aug 84 # 9,10,11.

Identity: by R. De Ruff, confirmed by F. Roberts.

First Found:  September 1983.

Computer Ref:  Plant Data 44.

Have plant specimen.

Last edit 11/26/04.  

                              September Photo                                                                          September Photo