Setaria italica (Foxtail millet)

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Setaria italica, photographed by Alice Shanks — fig. a Alice Shanks, CC BY 4.0 / 2021-02-15 / obs. 112971110

Setaria italica, photographed by Owen McElroy — fig. b Owen McElroy, CC0 1.0 / obs. 84959838

Setaria italica, photographed by Ryan Donnelly — fig. c Ryan Donnelly, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 81319885

Setaria italica, photographed by 台東伍仟 — fig. d 台東伍仟, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 63702029

Setaria italica, photographed by Paul Bell-Butler — fig. e Paul Bell-Butler, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 61918976

Setaria italica, photographed by Brandon Corder — fig. f Brandon Corder, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 59749115

Setaria italica, photographed by lanechaffin — fig. g lanechaffin, CC0 1.0 / obs. 43423471

Setaria italica, photographed by Martin Scheuch — fig. h Martin Scheuch, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 88720082

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Native range 2 botanical countries

Native distribution of Setaria italica, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows.

Region	TDWG code	Continent
China North-Central	CHN	ASIA-TEMPERATE
China Southeast	CHS

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Also published as 118 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

Alopecurus caudatus Thunb.
Chaetochloa germanica (Mill.) Smyth
Chaetochloa italica (L.) Scribn.
Chaetochloa italica f. metzgeri Farw.
Chaetochloa italica var. germanica (Mill.) Scribn.
Chamaeraphis italica (L.) Kuntze
Chamaeraphis italica var. elobulata Kuntze
Chamaeraphis italica var. germanica (Mill.) Kuntze
Chamaeraphis italica var. macrochaeta (J.Jacq.) Kuntze
Echinochloa erythrosperma Roem. & Schult.
Echinochloa intermedia Roem. & Schult.
Ixophorus italicus (L.) Nash
Oplismenus helvolus (L.f.) P.Beauv.
Oplismenus intermedius (Vahl ex Hornem.) Kunth
Panicum aegyptiacum Roem. & Schult.
Panicum asiaticum Schult. & Schult.f.
Panicum chinense Trin.
Panicum compactum Kit. ex Schult.
Panicum elongatum Salisb.
Panicum erythrospermum Vahl ex Hornem.
Panicum germanicum Mill.
Panicum germanicum Roth
Panicum globulare (J.Presl) Steud.
Panicum glomeratum Moench

and 94 more.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.