This grass is occasionally naturalised but mostly it is a casual which appears one year and disappears the next. Setaria pumila is a typical bird seed alien and at one site where it flourished there was plenty of evidence that people had been feeding the birds on the canal. It prefers the warmer climates but we still see a little of it here and there on waste ground and rubbish dumps in the north of the country.

Setaria pumila is recorded from sites all over England and Wales and the biggest concentration of records is in the south east. There isn't much naturalised in the north of England and even less in Scotland and Ireland.

LHS: Banks of Lymm canal, Cheshire 17th September 2010 RHS: Banks of River Itchen Southampton, 2nd October 2004

Added on December 3rd 2004, updated 7th February 2012, updated 19th Nov 2014