Melinis repens
species of plant
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.
References
External links
Grass Manual Treatment
Jepson Manual Treatment — invasive plant species in California.
USDA Plants Profile — invasive plant species.
The public source identifies “Melinis repens” as species of plant. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Melinis, repens and species.
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Stable identifiers, scientific names and standards terminology offer the best bridge between this overview and specialist evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Dec 22, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q24700355. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
Current terminology should not be projected backward without checking the classification used when the underlying evidence was created. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Melinis repens” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.