• Family : POACEAE
  (Grass Family)
• Family (Hindi name) : GHAS FAMILY (घास फैमिली)
• Family (as per The APG System III) : POACEAE
• Species Name (as per The Plant List) : Pennisetum purpureum Schumach.
• Common name : Elephant grass, Napier's Fodder
• Habit : Herb
• Habitat : Banks of streams and backwaters and also on hills
• Comments / notes : Cultivated as fodder crop, also an escape.
• Flower, Fruit : October-December
• Distribution :
  • Andhra Pradesh : Visakhapatnam (Vishakapatnam district)
  • Kerala : Kasaragod district, Kannur district, Kottayam district, Alappuzha district
  • Maharashtra : Chandrapur district, Pune district, Satara district
• Native : Tropical Africa
• World Distribution : Introduced in tropics
• Conservation Status : Not Evaluated (NE)
• Literature : H.O. Saxena & M. Brahmam, 1996- Flora of Orissa Vol. 4; H. O. Saxena and M. Brahmam, 1989 - The Flora of Similipahar (Similipal), Orissa; B. D. Sharma, S. Karthikeyan & N. P. Singh 1996 - Flora of Maharashtra state - Monocotyledons; Matthew, K.M., The Flora of Tamil Nadu Carnatic, Vol.3 (2). Diocesan Press, Madras. 1983; Sasidharan, N. 2011. Flowering plants of Kerala. DVD, V 2, KFRI.
• Citation : Sankara Rao, K., Raja K Swamy, Deepak Kumar, Arun Singh R. and K. Gopalakrishna Bhat (2019). Flora of Peninsular India. http://peninsula.ces.iisc.ac.in/plants.php?name=Pennisetum purpureum. Downloaded on 21 November 2024.

Botanical Description

Herbarium Specimen(s)