G.370. Eleusine Gaertn.

Annuals or perennials. Inflorescence composed of digitate or subdigitate racemes borne on a short axis; racemes with 2-seriate spikelets, terminating in a fertile spikelet. Spikelets several-flowered, laterally flattened, disarticulating above the glumes and between the florets (not the latter in E. coracana). Glumes 1-several-nerved, shorter than the lemmas, awnless. Lemmas 3-nerved, strongly keeled, sometimes the keels thickened and containing 1-3 closely spaced extra nerves, glabrous, obtuse to acute.

Derivation of name: from Greek: Eleusine, a name for Demeter, goddess of grain.

Worldwide: 10 species mostly in east and northeast Africa; 1 a cosmopolitan weed (indica) and 1 confined to South America.

Malawi: 2 taxa.