A low, tufted annual grass with flattened stems and finger-like seed spikes, one of the world's most common weeds of paths and cultivated ground.
Goosegrass or wire grass (Eleusine indica, family Poaceae) is an upright annual grass 15 to 85 cm tall, branching at the base to form clumps, with a particularly tough root system that makes it hard to pull out. It is a weed through the tropics and into the temperate zone, but it is also used locally as medicine and food and for weaving and paper. It is probably the ancestor of finger millet (Eleusine coracana), which is grown for its grain. The plant often contains prussic acid, mainly in the seeds, at levels just below the danger point.
It is widespread in the tropics and subtropics of Africa and Asia to New Guinea, on roadsides and waste ground up to 2,000 metres. It grows best at 20 to 26°C with 500 to 1,200 mm of rain a year, in ordinary soil and sun, tolerates some salinity, and is drought tolerant once established. Its seeds are spread in the dung of livestock, and young plants establish quickly and vigorously. The seed is barely covered when sown and germinates within two weeks.
Source: Useful Tropical Plants database (Fern, K.).
Used in traditional medicine across Africa and Asia as a diuretic and febrifuge, and for high blood pressure and jaundice.
Grazed as forage; the seeds are occasionally used as a famine food in parts of Africa and Asia.
A common weedy grass of compacted soils, footpaths, and cultivated land; not deliberately cultivated.