Bio Diversity Park

Common Name : Daabh

Hindi Name : डाभ | Scientific Name : Desmostachya bipinnata
Family : Poaceae
Uses : It is an excellent sand binder, used for fibre in Sudan, the culms used for thatching and making rough rope and brooms. The pulp (35% of total biomass) is suitable for papermaking; however, the fibre strength is lower than that of sisal and sun hemp. Young shoots have a crude protein content of 6.75% and are a good fodder for buffaloes in arid zones. On saline wastelands and sandy deserts in Pakistan, D. bipinnata along with Cynodon dactylon, Atriplex spp., Sesbania and Prosopis spp. serve as potential forage crops. Medicinally, it is diuretic, used to treat urinogenital disorders and dysentery as well as being a mild stimulant. It has been mentioned as an important medicinal plant in the Atri-samhita associated with mythological significance in India, as well as being used in rituals and Hindu ceremonies.
Native: Sahara to Tanzania and Indo-China
General Description:

It is a perennial or rhizomatous geophyte up to 150 cm high and grows primarily in the seasonally dry tropical biome. Having lower sheaths leathery, often densely flabellate. The stems are much branched, tufted and profusely rooted, and it branches from the rootstock, sending out rhizomes in all directions. The leaves are linear to linear-lanceolate, non-auriculate, acuminate and scarbid on the margins, without cross venation and persistent. The leaf sheaths are glabrous, leaf blades flat or inrolled, tough, long acuminate. Inflorescence up to 60 cm long, the racemes 1–4 cm long, erect or curving outwards from the main axis. Spikelets narrowly ovate to linear-oblong, 3–10 mm long; glumes unequal, the lower 0.7–1.5 mm long, the upper 1.1–2 mm long; lemmas straw-coloured or suffused with purple, 1.8–2.7 mm long.