FoI
Sabai Grass
Share Foto info
Sabai Grass
P Native Photo: Ashutosh Sharma
Common name: Sabai Grass • Hindi: भाबर घास Bhabar ghas, सबई घास Sabai ghas • Nepali: बाबियो Babiyo
Botanical name: Eulaliopsis binata    Family: Poaceae (Grass family)
Synonyms: Andropogon binatus, Pollinidium binatum, Spodiopogon binatus

Sabai Grass is a a perennial, clump-forming grass with leaf-blades 30-80 cm tall and flowering stems 2-3 ft tall. Leaves are mostly basal, up to 60 cm long, 2-3 mm wide, hairless, rigid, nearly erect, folded or convolute. Flower racemes are 2-4 cm long, rusty hairy. Spikelets are narrowly elliptic-oblong, 3.5-4.5 mm long; lower glume rufously hairy on the margins and with clusters of hair in the middle across the back; upper glume similarly hairy on the margins and with a single cluster in the middle on the back; lower floret male with well-developed lemma and palea; upper lemma with an awn 6-9 mm long. In India, this species is the second-most important raw material for paper pulp after bamboos, and it is much collected from the wild. In W Bengal and Orissa it is commonly cultivated on marginal uplands as a source of raw materials. Sabai Grass is found in the Himalayas, and north India at altitudes of 150-2600 m. Flowering: April-July.

Identification credit: Ashutosh Sharma Photographed in Hamirpur, Himachal Pradesh.

• Is this flower misidentified? If yes,