Synonyms:

• (=) Imperata arundinacea Cirillo
• (=) Imperata cylindrica subsp. koenigii (Retz.) Masam. & Yanagita
• (=) Imperata cylindrica var. koenigii (Retz.) Perkins
• (=) Imperata cylindrica var. major (Nees) C. E. Hubb.
• (=) Imperata koenigii (Retz.) P. Beauv.
• (=) Imperata koenigii var. major Nees
• Basionym: Lagurus cylindricus L.
• (=) Saccharum koenigii Retz.

Common names:

• alang-alang  (Source: Dict Rehm) - English
• blady grass  (Source: Genet Res Commun) - English
• cogon  (Source: Websters Dict) - English
• cogongrass  (Source: World Econ Pl) - English
• cotton-wool grass  (Source: Grass SAfr) - English
• imperata  (Source: Herbs Commerce ed2) - English
• Japanese blood grass  (Source: Dict Gard) - English
• kunai grass  (Source: Aust Pl Common Names) - English
• kura-kura  (Source: Aust Pl Common Names) - English
• halfa  (Source: F Egypt) - Arabic
• shishmallah  (Source: Weeds Saudi Arabia) - Arabic
• impérate  (Source: Dict Rehm) - French
• chi-gaya  (Source: Grass Japan) - Japanese Rōmaji
• fushige-chi-gaya  (Source: Dict Gard) - Japanese Rōmaji
• lalang  (Source: Dict Rehm) - Malay
• caminhadora  (Source: pers. comm.) - Portuguese (Brazil)
• sapé  (Source: pers. comm.) - Portuguese (Brazil)
• bomullsgräs  (Source: Kulturvaxtdatabas) - Swedish
• bai mao  (Source: Herbs Commerce ed2) - Transcribed Chinese

Economic Importance:

• Animal food: potential as forage
• Environmental: ornamental
• Medicines: folklore (Imperata cylindrica var. major)
• Weed: potential seed contaminant; potential seed contaminant

Distributional Range:

Native

Africa

• MACARONESIA: Portugal, [Madeira Islands] Spain [Canary Islands]
• NORTHERN AFRICA: Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia
• NORTHEAST TROPICAL AFRICA: Chad, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Sudan
• EAST TROPICAL AFRICA: Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda
• WEST-CENTRAL TROPICAL AFRICA: Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Rwanda
• WEST TROPICAL AFRICA: Benin, Burkina Faso, Cote D'Ivoire, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Togo
• SOUTH TROPICAL AFRICA: Angola, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia, Zimbabwe
• SOUTHERN AFRICA: Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa [KwaZulu-Natal, Free State, Transvaal, Cape Province]

Asia-Temperate

• ARABIAN PENINSULA: Oman, Saudi Arabia, Yemen
• WESTERN ASIA: Afghanistan, Cyprus, Egypt, [Sinai] Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey
• CAUCASUS: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Russian Federation [Dagestan]
• MIDDLE ASIA: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan
• CHINA: China
• EASTERN ASIA: Japan, [Hokkaidô, Honshu, Kyushu, Ryukyu Islands, Shikoku] Korea

Asia-Tropical

• INDIAN SUBCONTINENT: Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka
• PAPUASIA: Papua New Guinea
• INDO-CHINA: Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam
• MALESIA: Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines

Australasia

• AUSTRALIA: Australia [Tasmania, New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Victoria, Western Australia (n.e.), Northern Territory]

Europe

• SOUTHEASTERN EUROPE: Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece (incl. Crete), Italy (incl. Sardinia, Sicily), Slovenia
• SOUTHWESTERN EUROPE: France (s. & Corsica), Portugal, Spain (incl. Baleares)


Cultivated (also cult.)

Naturalized

Africa

• MACARONESIA: Cape Verde
• WESTERN INDIAN OCEAN: Madagascar, Seychelles

Asia-Tropical

• PAPUASIA: Papua New Guinea
• INDO-CHINA: Thailand

Australasia

• AUSTRALIA: Australia, [Lord Howe Island] Australia [Lord Howe Island]
• NEW ZEALAND: New Zealand

Northern America

• United States

Pacific

• NORTH-CENTRAL PACIFIC: United States [Hawaii]
• NORTHWESTERN PACIFIC: Micronesia, Palau, United States [Guam, Northern Mariana Islands]
• SOUTHWESTERN PACIFIC: United States, [American Samoa] Vanuatu

Southern America

• CARIBBEAN: West Indies
• CENTRAL AMERICA: Central America
• WESTERN SOUTH AMERICA: Colombia
• SOUTHERN SOUTH AMERICA: Chile
• South America

References:

1. Webster's third new international dictionary. (Websters Dict)
2. PROTABASE, the information base of PROTA (Plant Resources of Tropical Africa) (on-line resource). (PROTA4U)
3. Mid-Atlantic invasive plant species (on-line resource) (Mid Atl Invasive Pl)
4. Abbiw, D. K. Useful plants of Ghana (Use Pl Ghana)
5. Aldén, B., S. Ryman, & M. Hjertson Svensk Kulturväxtdatabas, SKUD (Swedish Cultivated and Utility Plants Database; online resource) (Kulturvaxtdatabas)
6. Bor, N. L. The grasses of Burma, Ceylon, India, and Pakistan. (Grass BCIP)
7. Boulos, L. Flora of Egypt (F Egypt)
8. Cameron, A. G. et al. 1995. Performance of forages introduced into Kalimantan, Indonesia, by the South-East Asian Forage Seeds Project Genet. Res. Commun. 21:2.
9. Chaudhary, S. A. Weeds of Saudi Arabia and the Arabian Peninsula. (Weeds Saudi Arabia)
10. CIBA-GEIGY, Basel, Switzerland Documenta CIBA-GEIGY (Grass weeds 1. 1980, 2. 1981; Monocot weeds 3. 1982; Dicot weeds 1. 1988) (Weed CIBA)
11. Council of Heads of Australasian Herbaria Australian plant census (APC) (on-line resource). (Aust Pl Census)
12. Davis, P. H., ed. Flora of Turkey and the east Aegean islands. (F Turk)
13. Euro+Med Editorial Committee Euro+Med Plantbase: the information resource for Euro-Mediterranean plant diversity (on-line resource). (EuroMed Plantbase)
14. Exell, A. W. et al., eds. Flora zambesiaca. (F Zamb)
15. FNA Editorial Committee Flora of North America. (F NAmer)
16. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) 2010. Ecocrop (on-line resource). (Ecocrop)
17. George, A. S., ed. Flora of Australia. (F Aust)
18. Ghazanfar, S. A. An annotated catalogue of the vascular plants of Oman. Scripta Botanica Belgica 2 (L Oman)
19. Gibbs-Russell, G. E. et al. Grasses of southern Africa. Mem. Bot. Surv. S. Africa vol. 58 (Grass SAfr)
20. Grierson, A. J. C. & D. J. Long Flora of Bhutan including a record of plants from Sikkim. (F Bhutan)
21. Groth, D. 2005. pers. comm. (pers. comm.)
22. Hansen, A. & P. Sunding Flora of Macaronesia: checklist of vascular plants, ed. 4. Sommerfeltia vol. 17. (L Macar ed4)
23. Hedberg, I. & S. Edwards Flora of Ethiopia (F Ethiop)
24. Hitchcock, A. S. Manual of the grasses of the United States, ed. 2. (Grass US)
25. Holm, L. et al. A geographical atlas of world weeds (Atlas WWeed)
26. Holttum, R. E. et al. A revised flora of Malaya. (F Malaya)
27. Huxley, A., ed. The new Royal Horticultural Society dictionary of gardening (Dict Gard)
28. Institute of Pacific Islands Forestry Pacific Island Ecosystems at Risk (PIER): plant threats to Pacific ecosystems (on-line resource). (Pacif I Ecosyst Risk)
29. Integrated Botanical Information System (IBIS) Australian plant common name database (on-line resource). (Aust Pl Common Names)
30. Izquierdo Z., I. et al., eds. Lista de especies silvestres de Canarias: hongos, plantas y animales terrestres (L Canarias)
31. Keay, R. W. J. & F. N. Hepper Flora of west tropical Africa, ed. 2. (F WT Afr)
32. Koyama, T. Grasses of Japan and its neighboring regions (Grass Japan)
33. Lazarides, M. The tropical grasses of Southeast Asia (Grass SEAs)
34. Mouterde, P. Nouvelle flore du Liban et de la Syrie. (F Liban)
35. Nasir, E. & S. I. Ali, eds. Flora of [West] Pakistan. (F Pak)
36. Padua, L. S. de et al., eds. 1999. Medicinal and poisonous plants 1 (Pl Res SEAs) 12(1):310.
37. Personal Care Products Council International Nomenclature Cosmetic Ingredient (INCI)
38. Plant Protection and Quarantine Office United States Department of Agriculture, Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. Federal noxious weed list (on-line resource). (USDA/APHIS)
39. Porcher, M. H. et al. Searchable World Wide Web Multilingual Multiscript Plant Name Database (MMPND) (on-line resource). (Pl Names)
40. Price, S. 1957. Cytological studies in Saccharum and allied genera. III. Chromosome numbers in interspecific hybrids Bot. Gaz. 118:146-159.
41. Rechinger, K. H., ed. Flora iranica. (F Iran)
42. Rehm, S. Multilingual dictionary of agronomic plants (Dict Rehm)
43. Seed Regulatory and Testing Division, Agricultural Marketing Service, U.S.D.A. State noxious-weed seed requirements recognized in the administration of the Federal Seed Act (updated annually). (State Noxweed Seed)
44. Shukla, U. Grasses of north-eastern India (Grass NE India)
45. Soerjani, M. et al., eds. 1987. Weeds of rice in Indonesia. (Weeds Rice Indonesia) 434.
46. Sreekumar, P. V. & V. J. Nair Flora of Kerala - grasses. (Grass Kerala)
47. 't Mannetje, L. & R. M. Jones, eds. 1992. Forages (Pl Res SEAs) 4:140-142.
48. Townsend, C. C. & E. Guest Flora of Iraq. (F Iraq)
49. Turrill, W. B. et al., eds. Flora of tropical East Africa. (F TE Afr)
50. Tutin, T. G. et al., eds. Flora europaea. (F Eur)
51. Tzvelev, N. N. Zlaki SSSR (Grass USSR)
52. USDA National Agricultural Library National Invasive Species Information Center (on-line resource). (Nat Invasive Sp Info)
53. Weber, E. Invasive plant species of the world: a reference guide to environmental weeds (Invasive Pl Spec)
54. Wood, J. R. I. A handbook of the Yemen flora. (F Yemen)
55. Wu Zheng-yi & P. H. Raven et al., eds. Flora of China (English edition). (F ChinaEng)
56. Zon, A. P. M. van der Graminées du Cameroun (Grass Camer)

Images:

• Disseminule drawings\; A-B: Floret in two views; C-D: caryopsis in two views: U.S. National Seed Herbarium drawing
• Embryo drawing: U.S. National Seed Herbarium drawing
• Spikelets and/or florets: U.S. National Seed Herbarium image