The open plant encyclopedia
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.
The plants people record most in your country, and ones that grow there wild.
Filter by what you want to do, shape, origin, country, care and safety.
Urochloa mutica
Also called Dutch Grass, Mauritius Grass, Scotch Grass, Scottish Grass, Buffalo Grass, Giant Couch
Urochloa mutica, commonly known as para grass, buffalo grass, Mauritius signal grass, pasto pare, malojilla, gramalote, parana, Carib grass, and Scotch grass, is a species of grass. Despite its common name of California grass, it does not occur in California; it is native to northern and central Africa and parts of the Middle East, where it is cultivated for fodder. It was introduced elsewhere and it is now cultivated throughout tropical regions of the world for this purpose.
Para grass is native to northern and central Africa and parts of the Middle East. It was introduced into Central America but has largely been superseded there by other species of Brachiaria. It was also introduced into the humid, tropical parts of Australia around 1880 and has become widely naturalised in Queensland. By a few decades later it had become naturalised in much of southern Asia and on many Pacific islands, but is confined to its preferred habitat of poorly drained, swampy land. Along with tanner grass, it is planted as a fodder grass in seasonally flooded or swampy habitats, and in ponds in pastures, but it can block irrigation ditches and drains. When used as forage for cattle it is usually controlled by the action of the animals, so it does not become too weedy. When it grows in other habitats, however, it can become noxious. It is aggressive and can form dense stands. It may also have allelopathic effects on other plants, preventing their growth.
Para grass is mainly cultivated to feed livestock as it makes a high quality forage for ruminant animals.
Urochloa nigropedata · Caribgrass · Palisade grass · Deflexed brachiaria · Congo Grass · Browntop signalgrass · African liverseed grass · Panic liverseed grass · Plantain signalgrass · Dixie signalgrass · Texas signalgrass · Signalgrass
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Urochloa mutica by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts are shared under the same licence.
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.
