Aerva javanica var. javanica Illustration Credit: M.Y. Saleem

Spikes dense and cylindrical, in female plants normally stout, usually forming very distinct terminal panicles. Leaves wider, narrowly oblong or elliptic to elliptic-oval or obovate, or small and suborbicular. Outer tepals up to 3 mm long.

Type: In Herb. Burmann (G, holotype!).

Distribution: The range of the typical form of this species is wide in the drier parts of the tropics and subtropics of the Old World, from Burma, India and Ceylon westwards through S.W. Asia, across N. Africa to Morocco and south to Cape Verde Islands and Cameroun through Uganda and Tanzania to Madagascar. Introduced in Australia and elsewhere.