Barnyard Grass
Scientific Name: Echinochloa crusgalli (L.) Beauv.
Other Names: échinochloa pied-de-coq, summer grass, water grass, pied-de-coq
Family: Grass Family (Gramineae)
General Description: Annual, reproducing only by seed.
Habitat: Widespread and troublesome weed throughout southern Ontario and occurs sporadically in the north and northwest as well. It occurs in cultivated fields, waste places, along road-sides, in gardens and occasionally in lawns, usually being more abundant in moist soil.
Seedlings
- Hairless
- Leaves are erect, long with no ligule
- Leaf sheath flattened in cross-section
- New leaves appear rolled up upon emergence
Stems
- Erect, spreading or lying horizontally on the ground and bending upwards but rooting from nodes in contact with the soil
- 5- 150cm (2 in.- 5 ft.) long
- Coarse, smooth, usually round in cross-section but occasionally much flattened
Leaves
- 5- 50 cm (2- 20 in.) long, 6- 22 mm (¼- ¾ in.) broad
- Deep green or somewhat purplish
- Hairless or with 1- 3 solitary hairs near the base of the blade
- Leaf sheaths split with overlapping margins
- Ligule absent
- No auricles
Flowers
- Inflorescence 5- 25 cm (2- 10 in.) long
- Central stem with several spreading, nearly erect, thick branches with dense clusters of spikelets
- Green to yellowish-green to dark purplish-green to almost black
- Each spikelet is covered with short, stiff hair, awned or awnless
- Single fertile seed:
- About 3 mm (1/8 in.) long
- Hard
- Shiny
- Pale yellow
- Rounded on one surface, flattened on the other
- Flowers from July to August
Often Confused With
Fall Panicum (Fall panicum may resemble barnyard grass in mature form but fall panicum has a distinct ligule, barnyard grass has no ligule)