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Mascarene grass

Zoysia tenuifolia

Also called Manila Grass

Mascarene grass
Photo: David-Pierre Mangiapan, CC BY-SA 3.0

Mascarene grass (Zoysia tenuifolia) is a fine-textured, slow-growing lawn and turf grass, often bred into hybrid zoysia cultivars. It is sun-loving and does best where summers are warm and it can spread into a dense mat.

Family
Poaceae (Grass family)
Grows as
Grass
Light
Full sun, Part shade
Water
Water deeply and infrequently once established, letting the top of the soil dry slightly between waterings.
Soil
Well-drained soil, tolerant of sandy or poor soils.
Temperature
20–35 °C; dormant and browning below about 10 °C.
How easy
Easy
Safety
Not known to be toxic

About

Zoysia tenuifolia is a type of grass originally thought to be one of the native grass type to the Mascarene Island. The epithet tenuifolia is commonly used to describe plant specimens in Mascarene Islands and Zoysia tenuifolia is also called Mascarene grass. Korean grass is another common name for this species. Z. tenuifolia is not widely used as a general lawn grass due to its slow growth rate and tendency to form clumps, although this species is commonly bred with Zoysia japonica to create popular hybrid zoysia cultivars, such as Emerald and Geo. It was once part of the diet of Cylindraspis tortoises before their extinction.

This grass may also be a subspecies of the commonly used lawn grass Manila grass, being referred to as Zoysia matrella var. pacifica.

Other Zoysia plants

Korean lawngrass · Manila grass · Lawngrass

Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Zoysia tenuifolia 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.

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