Japanese name: カモガヤ（鴨茅） Scientific name:Dactylis glomerata
[Overview]
A perennial 50–150 cm tall.
It has a short rhizome and forms a clump.
The leaves are linear, 10–40 cm long and 0.5–1.5 cm wide, and stand upright.
A panicle 8–30 cm long emerges at the top of the stem, bearing many spikelets densely on one side of the branches.
The spikelets are elliptical, about 0.5–1 cm long, and consist of several florets.
The glumes are pointed.
The lemmas are larger than the glumes, keeled, pointed at the tip, and bear short stiff bristles.
The fruit is a caryopsis.
[History]
It was introduced as a forage grass in the early Meiji period and has become naturalized throughout Japan.
