Eragrostis amabilis

(Linn.) Wight & Arn.

Bug's egg grass

PoaceaeSeeds/Nuts

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(c) Han-Ting Liu, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)

What to Eat

Edible parts: Seeds, Grain, Cereal

Seed. Sometimes eaten as a cereal, it is said to be nutritious. The seed is small and fiddly to utilize - it is most commonly seen as a famine food, used when nothing better is available.

Where to Find It

It is a tropical plant. It grows along roadsides and on cultivated land across Africa and in Asia. It grows in savannah woodland. In Yunnan.

Africa, American Samoa, Asia, British Indian Ocean Terr., BIOT, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central Africa, China, East Africa, Fiji, Guinea, Guinée, Guinea-Bissau, India, Madagascar, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Niue, Pacific, Sahel, Senegal, Sierra Leone, St. Kitts and Nevis, Taiwan, Tibet, Tuvalu, West Africa,

Countries: United Arab Emirates, Afghanistan, Armenia, Angola, American Samoa, Australia, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Bahrain, Burundi, Benin, Brunei, Bhutan, Botswana, Congo (DRC), Central African Republic, Congo (Republic), Cote d'Ivoire, Cameroon, China, Cape Verde, Djibouti, Algeria, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Fiji, Micronesia, Gabon, Georgia, Ghana, Gambia, Guinea, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Indonesia, Israel, India, British Indian Ocean Territory, Iraq, Iran, Jordan, Japan, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Cambodia, Kiribati, Comoros, North Korea, South Korea, Kuwait, Kazakhstan, Laos, Lebanon, Sri Lanka, Liberia, Lesotho, Libya, Morocco, Madagascar, Marshall Islands, Mali, Myanmar, Mongolia, Mauritania, Mauritius, Maldives, Malawi, Malaysia, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Nepal, Nauru, Niue, New Zealand, Oman, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Pakistan, Palau, Qatar, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Solomon Islands, Seychelles, Sudan, Singapore, Sierra Leone, Senegal, Somalia, South Sudan, Sao Tome & Principe, Syria, Eswatini, Chad, Togo, Thailand, Tajikistan, Timor-Leste, Turkmenistan, Tunisia, Tonga, Turkey, Tuvalu, Taiwan, Tanzania, Uganda, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, Vanuatu, Samoa, Yemen, South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe

How to Identify

A delicate annual grass. It forms tufts. It grows 30-60 cm high. The leaf blades are flat and 2-10 cm long by 0.5 cm wide. The seeds are oval and red and 0.5 mm across.

How to Grow

The plant is a common weed of cultivated land.

Other Uses

Despite the plant's tendency to be annual, it has been grown as a lawn turf on the campus of University College, Cape Coast, Ghana, where self-sown seedlings maintain the sward. It is also grown as a covering on the central divider of a roadway.

Wikipedia

Source ↗

Eragrostis amabilis is a bunchgrass, in the subfamily Chloridoideae of Poaceae, native to Africa and southern Asia. Synonymy includes: Eragrostis tenella Benth., Eragrostis elegans Nees, and Eragrostis interrupta Lam. Döll.

Names & Synonyms

Ahipody, Budo mboju, Buluuhi, Love grass, Nyina foni

Eragrostis tenella (L.) P. Beauv.Poa tenella L.and several others

References (4)

Burkill, H. M., 1985, The useful plants of west tropical Africa, Vol. 2. Kew. (As Eragrostis tenella)
Franklin, J., Keppel, G., & Whistler, W., 2008, The vegetation and flora of Lakeba, Nayau and Aiwa Islands, Central Lau Group, Fiji. Micronesica 40(1/2): 169–225, 2008 (As Eragrostis tenella)
Thaman, R. R, 2016, The flora of Tuvalu. Atoll Research Bulletin No. 611. Smithsonian Institute p 54 (As Eragrostis tenella)
Topp, J. M. W., 1988, An Annotated Check List of the Flora of Diego Garcia, British Ocean Territory. Atoll Research Bulletin No. 313 (As Eragrostis tenella var. insularis)