Broadleaved bristlegrass

Setaria palmifolia, the palmgrass or broadleaved bristlegrass (also called highland pitpit, knotroot or typhoon grass), is a robust perennial grass in the Poaceae reaching 2 to 3 meters tall from a knotty rhizome. The culms are up to 1 centimeter thick with hairy leaf sheaths bearing distinctive broad, pleated, palm-like blades 60 to 80 centimeters long and 7 to 8 centimeters wide that are linear to oval-lanceolate. The inflorescence is a loose open panicle up to 80 centimeters long, the spikelets each subtended by bristles up to 1.5 centimeters long that give the genus its common name. Native to temperate and tropical Asia, the species has been introduced widely as an ornamental and food plant and has become invasive in Australia, New Zealand, the Pacific Islands and the Americas, particularly Hawaii, Samoa, Fiji and the Solomon Islands. In Papua New Guinea its cooked young stems are eaten as a vegetable called highland pitpit and the grain is used as a rice substitute.