Flora of Israel: Smilograss

Piptatherum miliaceum, Oryzopsis miliacea, Smilograss, Rice millet,
Hebrew: נשרן הדוחן, Arabic: رزية ناعمة

Scientific name:   Piptatherum miliaceum (L.) Coss.
Synonym name:   Oryzopsis miliacea (L.) Asch. & Schweinf.
Common name:   Smilograss, Rice millet
Hebrew name:   נשרן הדוחן
Arabic name:   رزية ناعمة
Family:   Graminea (Poaceae), Grass Family, משפחת הדגניים


Life form:   Hemicryptophyte
Stems:   65-150 cm high; often branched, sometimes rooting at the nodes, wiry, glabrous or minutely scabrid; nodes glabrous
Leaves:   Alternate, rosette, entire
Inflorescence:   Panicle, open and sparse, 15-35cm long; pedicels (flower stalks) scabrid with hairs 0.05-0.1 mm long
Flowers:   Lemma (the lower bract of the floret of a grass) elliptic, green, pale golden brown, smooth, glabrous; palea (the upper bract of the floret) with 2 indistinct veins
Fruits / pods:   Caryopses
Flowering Period:   February, March, April, May, June, July
Habitat:   Batha, Phrygana
Distribution:   Mediterranean Woodlands and Shrublands, Semi-steppe shrublands, Shrub-steppes, Deserts and extreme deserts, Montane vegetation of Mt. Hermon
Chorotype:   Mediterranean
Summer shedding:   Perennating


Derivation of the botanical name:

Piptatherum, pipto, “to fall”, and ather, “stalk”.

miliaceum, pertaining to millet; millet-like.
Oryzopsis, from orysa for “rice” and opsis for “appearance” referring to its similar appearance to rice.
The Hebrew name: נשרן, nasran, formed from נשר, nashar (=to fall out).

  • The standard author abbreviation L. is used to indicate Carl Linnaeus (1707 – 1778), a Swedish botanist, physician, and zoologist, the father of modern taxonomy.
  • The standard author abbreviation Coss. is used to indicate Ernest Saint-Charles Cosson (1819 – 1889), a French botanist.
  • The standard author abbreviation Asch. is used to indicate Paul Friedrich August Ascherson (1834 – 1913), a German botanist.
  • The standard author abbreviation Schweinf. is used to indicate Georg August Schweinfurth (1836 – 1925),a German botanist, traveller in East Central Africa and ethnologist.