TABLE 1.
Morphological differences among wild and cultivated species of Echinochloa species.
| Traits | Echinochloa colonaa | Echinochloa crus-gallia | Echinochloa frumentacea | Echinochloa esculenta |
| Common name | Jungle rice | Barnyard grass | Indian barnyard millet/sawa millet | Japanese barnyard millet |
| Synonyms | Echinochloa colonum, Echinochloa crus-galli subsp. colona, Panicum colonum, Panicum cumingianum, Panicum zonale, and Milium colonum, Oplismenus colonus | Panicum crus-galli, Panicum hispidulum, Milium crus-galli, and Pennisetum crus-galli | Billion Dollar grass, sawa millet, sama millet | Japanese millet, marsh millet, Siberian millet, and white millet |
| Origin | China and Japan | China, Japan, and Korea | India, Pakistan, and Nepal | Eastern Asia, Japan, China, and Korea |
| Distribution | Widely distributed in South and Southeast Asia, Australia, Africa, Europe, and America | Widely distributed in South and Southeast Asia, Africa, Europe, and America | Widely distributed in Central Africa, Africa, Temperate Asia, Tropical Asia, Australasia, and South America. | Widely distributed in India, Temperate Asia, Australasia, and Pacific. |
| Habitat | Annual, warmer region | Annual, temperate region | Annual, warmer region | Annual, warm-season |
| Cultivable range | – | – | Altitude below 1,900 m | Altitude up to 2,500 m |
| General morphology | Erect to decumbent, 60 cm tall, short leaf length 10-15 cm, red tinges at the basal portion of leaf, leaf blade surface smooth, leaf blades 3–30 cm long and 2–8 mm wide | Erect, 200 cm tall, leaf 10-40 cm long, leaf blade surface smooth, leaf blades 0.5–35 cm long and 6–20 mm wide | Erect, 242 cm tall, leaf length 15–40 cm long and 1–2.5 cm wide, plants mostly green, however, purple tinges also found in vegetative and reproductive parts, leaf blades are smooth and glabrous, culms slender to robust | Robust, 60–122 cm tall, leaf sheath smooth 10–50 cm long and 7–25 mm wide, plants green, however, light to dark purple pigmentation in various plant parts, thicker stem |
| Inflorescence morphology | Green to purple, inflorescence length 5-15 cm, simple ascending racemes 5–15 numbers, 0.5–3 cm long raceme | Green to purple, inflorescence length 10-25 cm, compound ascending racemes 5–15 numbers, 2–10 cm long, slightly hairy, green to purplish awns 2-5 mm long | Green to purple, usually erect and compact, inflorescence length 1-28 cm long, racemes numerous 20–70, 1–3 cm long, rarely drooping, awnless | Brown to purple, compact inflorescence 12–15 cm long, racemes 5–15 numbers, arcuate to flexuous, 0.5–3 cm long, rarely awned |
| Spikelets on panicle | Spikelets arranged in 4 uniform rows on the primary rachis, spikelets 1-3 mm long | Open, branched spikelets on the rachis, setae on the primary branches | Compact, non-branched spikelets on the rachis, tightly clustered, 2–4 mm long, acute and awnless. | Compact, branched spikelets, larger spikelets and longer primary branches, dense clustered, 3–4 mm long, shortly cuspidate and rarely awned. |
| Caryopsis | Straw white, brown | Dark gray, brown | Turgid, whitish | Dull, pale yellow to light brown |
| Seed dormancy | Present | Absent | Present | Absent |
| Seed shattering | High | Low | High | Low |