Echinochloa esculenta

Japanese millet

Family: Poaceae · Type: perennial · Not Native

Japanese millet is a naturalized perennial found in central western California, southern California coastal areas, and the Mojave Province in disturbed, often wet sites and fields at elevations below 1,300 meters. Flowering from August to October, this grass produces compact greenish-brown flower clusters 7 to 30 centimeters long with densely packed spikelets. Growing with robust stems 80 to 150 centimeters tall, it develops erect or spreading branches that often curve inward as they mature. Its leaves have glabrous sheaths and broad blades 10 to 50 centimeters long and 5 to 25 millimeters wide, with strigose nodes and scabrous internodes. The mature fruit is approximately brown, with small spikelets 3 to 4 millimeters long that have broadly ovate lemmas with shortly acute tips.

Habitat: Disturbed, often wet sites, fields

Bloom period: Aug-Oct

Elevation: < 1300 m

Bioregions: CW, SCo, MP

Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.