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Melinis repens
Also called Creeping Molasses Grass, Natal grass, Natal Red Top, Natal Redtop, Red Natal Grass
Rose Natal grass is a tufted grass, annual or short-lived perennial, growing up to about a metre tall, with silky pink or white flower heads. It is a fast, sun-loving grower in warm, seasonally dry climates, and is often treated as a weed outside its native range.
Melinis repens is a species of grass known by the common names rose Natal grass, Natal red top, or simply Natal grass. It is native to southern Africa and an introduced species, often considered a noxious weed, on other continents such as North America and Australia. It is an annual or perennial grass, growing up to a meter tall. Its growth rate is dependent on temperature. The inflorescence is an open array of branches bearing spikelets densely coated in silky white or pink. In Chishona, its name is bhurakwacha.
The Mursi people of Ethiopia call this grass imai. It grows along the banks of the Omo River, and gives its name to the star Delta Crucis, whose heliacal setting is used to determine when the Omo will flood and rise high enough to flatten the imai grass.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Melinis repens 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.
