Smut grass

Sporobolus indicus is a tufted perennial grass of the Poaceae family growing 30-120 cm tall with a stout fibrous root system. Culms are erect, slender, glabrous, and arise in dense clumps from a short knotty rootstock. Leaves are mostly basal, narrow, flat or folded, 15-40 cm long and 2-4 mm wide, with smooth surfaces and tapering to a long fine point; the basal sheaths are smooth and the ligule is a very short, hairy or membranous rim. The inflorescence is a narrow, spike-like contracted panicle 10-40 cm long, often appearing as a slender greyish-green to dark-coloured column due to the appressed branches and crowded spikelets; in older plants the panicle is frequently colonised by a dark sooty smut fungus, giving the species its common name. Spikelets are tiny, 1.5-2.5 mm long, one-flowered, with thin glumes shorter than the lemma. Native to the warm regions of the Americas and now pantropical, it flowers most of the year.