Scientific name
Digitaria bicornis Roemer & J.A. Schultes ex Loud
Common name
Finger grass, Asian crabgrass
Khmer/Indigenous name
Smao sambok mon
Family
Poaceae
Plant type
Grass
Description/ Characteristics
Annual. culms decumbent, rooting at lower nodes, 30–60 cm tall. Leaf sheaths glabrous or lower sheaths papillose-pilose; leaf blades linear, 2.5–15 × 0.2–0.9 mm, usually scabrid on both surfaces, rarely sparsely pilose; ligule 1–3.5 mm. Inflorescence digitate or subdigitate; racemes 2–5, 4–14 cm; spikelets paired, imbricate; rachis triquetrous, ca. 1 mm wide, winged. Spikelets lanceolate, ca. 3 mm, those of a pair usually different; lower spikelet glabrous, upper spikelet pubescent; lower glume very small, almost absent or up to 0.4 mm, triangular or bifid, veinless; upper glume lanceolate, ca. 2/3 length of spikelet, 3-veined, pilose; lower lemma as long as spikelet, 7-veined, lower spikelet with equidistant veins, upper spikelet with wider glabrous interspaces on either side of midvein, lateral veins crowded near margins, rows of silky hairs between lateral veins, usually also setose, the hairs spreading halo-like at maturity; upper lemma yellowish, slightly shorter than spikelet.
Habitat
Roadsides, wasteland, upland crop fields, edges of rice fields
Control methods
http://www.knowledgebank.irri.org/step-by-step-production/growth/weed-management
Reference
http://www.efloras.org/florataxon.aspx?flora_id=2&taxon_id=200025246
Image copyright
Dr Robert J. Martin
University of Sydney
bob.martin@sydney.edu.au