Description

A tufted leafy annual to about 60 cm tall, of rice-padis, marshes and standing water; native of tropical Asia; rare in Senegal, Ivory Coast, Ghana and Nigeria, and probably introduced with cultivated rice.The plant is a weed of cultivated rice in Asia. It becomes abundant in the fallows and its seed survive ploughing-in, germinating as the new rice crop is planted. It provides cattle-fodder and the seed appears to pass undigested through the intestines (1).