Fig. 111.—Setaria verticillata.
Setaria verticillata, Beauv.
This is an annual grass, with erect, ascending, stout or slender, leafy stems, more or less branched and varying in length from 1 to 5 feet.
The leaf-sheaths are smooth, glabrous. The ligule is a fringe of hairs. Nodes are glabrous.
The leaf-blades are thin, flat, glabrous, sparsely hairy and scaberulous, linear or linear-lanceolate, tapering to a fine point, base usually narrowed, 4 to 10 inches long and 1/4 to 3/4 inch broad.
The inflorescence is a spike-like or subpyramidal panicle, cylindric or oblong, coarsely bristly, 2 to 7 inches long, bristles one or few, studded with conspicuously reversed barbs or teeth, 1/6 to 1/3 inch long.