Plant Wiki

The open plant encyclopedia

Know any plant.
Grow it well.

Snap a photo or search by any name to see how to care for it, where it comes from, whether it's safe, and a 3D model you can turn.

  • 13,000+plants with full pages
  • 365,000+plant species worldwide
  • 220+countries covered

Common in

See all

The plants people record most in your country, and ones that grow there wild.

What do you want to do?

Popular plants

Browse all plants

See them in 3D

All plants in 3D

Browse plants

Filter by what you want to do, shape, origin, country, care and safety.

Plant Wiki › Browse plants

Woody melicgrass

Melica frutescens

Woody melicgrass is a perennial bunch grass from the dry shrublands of the southwestern US and northwestern Mexico, with woody stems and a narrow, branched flower panicle. It is a wild species grown mainly in native or xeriscape plantings, and it needs well-drained soil and little water once established.

Family
Poaceae (Grass family)
Grows as
Grass
Light
Full sun, Part shade
Water
Water deeply but infrequently, letting the soil dry out between waterings.
Soil
Sandy or gritty, well-drained soil.
Temperature
Hardy in warm-to-mild climates; protect from prolonged hard frost.
How easy
Easy
Native range
SW. U.S.A. to NW. Mexico
Climate
desert or dry shrubland

About

Melica frutescens, the woody melicgrass, is a species of grass found in Arizona and California in the United States and in Mexico.

Other Melica plants

Siberian melicgrass · Melica amethystina · Melica animarum · Melica argentata · Melica argyrea · Bearded melicgrass · Melica arzivencoi · Melica bocquetii · Melica bonariensis · Melica brasiliana · Melica brevicoronata · Oniongrass

Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Melica frutescens by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.

The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.

Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.

Credits & terms

Identify a plant

Point at a leaf or flower and snap. One plant in frame works best.

Your photo
Starting camera…