Eleusine coracana

Eleusine coracana (L.) Gaertn.

Order	Poales
Family	Gramineae
Genus	Eleusine

2n =

Origin : Ethiopia

wild and cultivated

English	{{{english}}}
French	{{{french}}}

Popular names

• English: finger millet, African millet, koracan
• French: petit mil, coracan
• German: Fingerhirse
• Dutch, Afrikaans: vogel gierst
• Portuguese: luco, capim colonial, nachenim
• Swahili:
  • wimbi, ulezi (Lost crops of Africa)
  • mwimbi, ulezi (PROTA)
• Amharic: dagussa, tokuso (Lost crops of Africa)

• Nepalese: koddo (Lost crops of Africa)
• Hindi: mandua, mandal (Wealth of India)
• Bengali: marua (Wealth of India)
• Marathi: nagli, nachoni (Wealth of India)
• Gujerati: bavto, nagli (Wealth of India)
• Telugu:
  • ragulu (Wealth of India)
  • rāgi (DEDR)
• Tamil:
  • ragi, kelvaregu (Wealth of India)
  • irāki, iṟuṅku (DEDR)
• Kannada:
  • ragi (Wealth of India)
  • rāgi (DEDR)
• Malayalam:
  • muttari (Wealth of India)
  • rāgi, ṟayi (DEDR)

• Koḍagu: eri (DEDR)
• Iruḷa: ra•yi (DEDR)
• Toda: erxy (DEDR)
• Tulu: rāgi (DEDR)

Biology

<gallery widths=80px heights=80px perrow=9 File:EleusineCoracana1.jpg| spikes File:A Scene of Ragi.JPG|grains of a red cultivar </gallery>

Classification

Eleusine coracana (L.) Gaertn. (1788)

Basionym:

• Cynosurus coracan L. (1759)

Synonyms:

• Cynosurus coracanus L. (1762)
• Eleusine cerealis Salisb. (1796)

Linnaeus used coracan in 1759 and corrected the epithet to coracanus in 1762. It is still uncertain whether the original spelling has to be maintained or corrected.

History

see Candolle's and Sturtevant's articles.

Links

• GRIN
• IPNI
• [http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=2305&page=39 Lost crops of Africa|
• Mansfeld (Eleusine coracan)
• Plants for a future
• Prota4U