Echinochloa esculenta
3. Echinochloa esculenta (A. Braun) H. Scholz (syn.: E. utilis Ohwi et Yabuno) (As.) – Now a rather frequent and much increasing but strictly ephemeral birdseed component (introduced on purpose for cage birds; see Hanson & Mason 1985). Formerly much more rare; collected around ca. 1950 on the banks of river Vesdre near Verviers, apparently for the first time in Belgium. Much increasing since the 1970’s, at first in the surroundings of Turnhout and subsequently in numerous very widely scattered localities. Echinochloa esculenta is most often found on dumps, along road verges and in urban areas.
Echinochloa esculenta only starts flowering in autumn and often seems very reluctant to flower. It might therefore often pass unrecorded.
It is readily distinguished from Echinochloa frumentacea on inflorescence colour only but is otherwise hardly separated. Echinochloa esculenta is probably derived from E. crus-galli whereas E. frumentacea supposedly is derived from E. colona (inversed by Mabberley 2008!).
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Selected literature:
Clement E.J. (1981) Confusion between white and Japanese millets. BSBI News 27: 16-18.
Delvosalle L. (1953) Quelques adventices nouvelles pour la Belgique. Bull. Soc. Roy. Bot. Belg. 85: 297-303.
Hanson C.G. & Mason J.L. (1985) Bird seed aliens in Britain. Watsonia 15: 237-252.
Lambinon J. (1993) Quelques données inédites sur des graminées adventices ou subspontanées en Belgique. Belg. Journ. Bot. 126: 3-12.
Mabberley D.J. (2008) Mabberley’s plant-book (3th ed.). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge: XVIII + 1021 p.
Pacyna A. & Guzik J. (1997) Echinochloa esculenta (Poaceae) – a new alien plant in Poland. Fragm. Flor. Geobot. 42: 265-273.
Scholz H. (1992) Echinochloa esculenta, comb. nov., the correct name of the Japanese barnyard millet (Gramineae). Taxon 41(3): 522-523.
Verloove F. & Vandenberghe C. (1993) Nieuwe en interessante graanadventieven voor de Noordvlaamse en Noordfranse flora, hoofdzakelijk in 1992. Dumortiera 53-54: 35-57.