FoI
Giant Adlay Millet
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Giant Adlay Millet
P Native Photo: Dinesh Valke
Common name: Giant Adlay Millet • Kannada: Kachalu, Suku dabha • Marathi: Kasai, Varival • Tamil: Kochikai • Telugu: Gela gaddi, Kaasi gaddi, Kalivaeru gaddi
Botanical name: Polytoca gigantea    Family: Poaceae (Grass family)
Synonyms: Chionachne koenigii, Coix gigantea, Coix lacryma-jobi var. gigantea

Giant Adlay Millet is a stout perennial herb with stems up to 250 cm high; nodes bearded. Leaves are 10-75 x 0.5-2 cm, linear, heart-shaped at base, scabrous; sheath rounded, hairless; ligule a fringed membrane. Flowers are borne in an interrupted panicle; 1-few racemes subtended by a leafy spathe; each raceme 2-4 cm long with a single female spikelet at base and many male spikelets above. Female spikelet 6 x 4 mm, obovate, enclosed in an involucre; ovary oblong; styles 2, basely fused stigmas 2, plumose, 6-8 mm long. Male spikelets 8-10 x 2 mm; lower glume 8 x 1.5 mm, 13-nerved; upper glume similar, 6-nerved; florets 2, similar, lower one with shorter anthers; stamens 3, free; anthers 4 mm long. Giant Adlay Millet is native to the Indian Subcontinent to W. Malesia. It is also found in the Himalayas.

Identification credit: Manoj Chandran Photographed in Maharashtra & Madhya Pradesh.

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