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Ethiopian Black Millet
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Ethiopian Black Millet
ative Photo: Sushant More
Common name: Ethiopian Black Millet
Botanical name: Melanocenchris abyssinica    Family: Poaceae (Grass family)
Synonyms: Melanocenchris plumosa, Eutriana abyssinica

Ethiopian Black Millet is a small annual desert grass. Stems (stems) are fasciculate or geniculately ascending, 10-20 cm high. Leaf-blades are 1.5-5 cm long, 1.2-2.5 mm wide, scabrous above and with sparse whitish tubercle-based hairs on the margins; sheaths with scattered tubercle-based hairs. Heads 3-5 on a rhachis 1.5-3 cm long. Glumes, including the awns, 10-15 mm long, usually purple-tinged and with whitish or purple hairs, the lower a little longer than the upper; lowest lemma 3-lobed, the lobes aristate, the central considerably longer than the laterals and narrower at the base, 6-7 mm long; palea about equalling the lemma or slightly shorter than it. Ethiopian Black Millet is found in Pakistan (Sind, Baluchistan & Punjab), NW India, Arabia to NE tropical Africa.

Identification credit: Sushant More
Photographed in Great Indian Bustard Sanctuary Solapur, Maharashtra.
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