Melinis repens subsp. repens
Red Natal-grassTufted or shortly rhizomatous annual or perennial. Culms ascending to erect, to c. 1 m high; nodes hairy. Leaf-blades glabrous, flat, smooth, to 20 long and 6 mm wide; sheaths ciliate; ligules silky-hairy, c. 1mm long. Panicle 8–20 cm long, with short, spreading branches; pedicels fine, usually with a few fine hairs toward apex. Spikelets 3–5 mm long (excluding hairs); lower glume oblong, 0.5–1.5 mm long, hairy; upper glume densely covered with pinkish silky hairs as long or longer than glume, 5-nerved, elliptic, as long as the spikelet, keeled, truncate or emarginate, with a short point or awn to 2 mm long; lower floret neuter or male only, its lemma equal to and resembling the upper glume, its palea subequal to lemma but narrower and membranous; upper (fertile) lemma 2–2.4 mm long, firm, shining and glabrous; palea equal to lemma. Flowers Apr.–Aug.
VVP, VRiv, GipP. Naturalised all States except NT. Native to the Arabian Peninsula, India, and Africa. Currently known from a single occurrence along a railway embankment at Footscray, first noted in April, 1989. Specimens from the early 1900s from Geelong and Mortlake areas may have been attempts at introduction for pasture. There are no recent records from these two areas.
Walsh, N.G. (1994). Poaceae. In: Walsh, N.G.; Entwisle, T.J., Flora of Victoria Vol. 2, Ferns and Allied Plants, Conifers and Monocotyledons, pp. 356–627. Inkata Press, Melbourne.
Spinning