Plants annual. Culms 30-120 cm, erect or decumbent, sometimes rooting
at the lower nodes; nodes and internodes glabrous. Sheaths
smooth, glabrous; ligules 0.5-1 mm; blades 6-40 cm long, 3-8 mm
wide, linear, flat to involute, glabrous adaxially. Panicles 6-18 cm long,
0.8-3 cm wide; rachises smooth or scabrous; branches 3-10, 25-60
mm long, 0.4-0.6 mm wide, sometimes winged, glabrous, with 20-40 spikelets, spikelets
solitary or in unequally pedicellate pairs at the middle of the branches; pedicels
0.2-0.8 mm, glabrous or hairy below, apices with fewer than 10 hairs to 0.5 mm
long. Spikelets 2.7-3.6 mm long, 0.8-1.5 mm wide, lanceolate. Upper
glumes 1.1-1.3 times longer than the lower lemmas, hairy, 5-veined, apices
acuminate and acute to awned, awns 0.3-1.5 mm; lower lemmas 2.5-3.3 mm
long, 0.8-1 mm wide, setose, apices acuminate and mucronate; lower paleas
absent; anthers absent; upper lemmas 1.7-2.2 mm, elliptic, acute
to rounded, awned, awns 0.2-0.5 mm. 2n = unknown.
Eriochloa fatmensis is native to tropical Africa, Arabia, and India, where
it usually grows in wet areas or grasslands. It has been found in Tucson, Arizona,
and Biloxi, Mississippi, but is probably not established in the Flora region.
