Melica minutaL.

WFO wfo-0000879278 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Melica minuta, photographed by Katrin Simon
fig. a Katrin Simon, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-04-19 / obs. 189484414
Melica minuta, photographed by Daniel Cahen
fig. b Daniel Cahen, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 36353648
Melica minuta, photographed by Daniel Cahen
fig. c Daniel Cahen, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 36248170
Melica minuta, photographed by Daniel Cahen
fig. d Daniel Cahen, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 35385569
Melica minuta, photographed by carnifex
fig. e carnifex, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 201886901
Melica minuta, photographed by Duarte Frade
fig. f Duarte Frade, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 195459734
Melica minuta, photographed by Duarte Frade
fig. g Duarte Frade, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 172778816
Melica minuta, photographed by Yves Bas
fig. h Yves Bas, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 134414500

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

The specimen a real sheet, in a real collection

Herbarium
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
Accession
K003212686
Filed as
Melica minuta L.
Det. by
Brightly, W.
Collected
Meebold, A. 1931-05-01
Origin
FR
The sheet
View the digitised specimen (CC BY 4.0)

A real pressed plant, in a real collection, under the accession number above. Not an illustration of one. The holding institution does not serve this sheet’s image to third parties, so there is no photograph here. The record is real and the link goes to it. Where we hold no openly licensed sheet for a species this section is simply absent, and where a sheet never recorded who determined it, that field stays empty rather than being filled in. Roughly half of all herbarium sheets never recorded a determiner, which is ordinary.

Native range 20 botanical countries

Regions where Melica minuta is native: Algeria, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia, Cyprus, East Aegean Is., Palestine, Türkiye, Albania, Baleares, Corse, France, Greece, Italy, Kriti, NW. Balkan Pen., Portugal, Sardegna, Sicilia, Spain AlgeriaLibyaMoroccoTunisiaCyprusEast Aegean Is.PalestineTürkiyeAlbaniaCorseFranceGreeceItalyKritiNW. Balkan Pen.PortugalSiciliaSpain BalearesSardegna
Native distribution of Melica minuta, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows. Regions too small to draw at this scale are marked with a dot.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Albania ALB EUROPE
Baleares BAL
Corse COR
France FRA
Greece GRC
Italy ITA
Kriti KRI
NW. Balkan Pen. YUG
Portugal POR
Sardegna SAR
Sicilia SIC
Spain SPA
Algeria ALG AFRICA
Libya LBY
Morocco MOR
Tunisia TUN
Cyprus CYP ASIA-TEMPERATE
East Aegean Is. EAI
Palestine PAL
Türkiye TUR

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Where it actually grows measured, from 226 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 0.2 °C 7.2 °C 11.4 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 24.4 °C 27.2 °C 30.5 °C
Annual rainfall 385 mm 713 mm 1,139 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 4 mm 41 mm 131 mm

It is found where winters are cool but frost is light or absent. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 226 research-grade observations of Melica minuta that carry a coordinate, and this is the range those places actually span. The 5th and 95th percentiles are used rather than the minimum and maximum, because a single cultivated specimen in a heated conservatory should not widen a tropical plant's range to the Arctic.

This is not a hardiness zone. A USDA zone is the average annual extreme minimum temperature. The figure above is the mean daily minimum of the coldest month, which is a different quantity and is typically far warmer. Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one.

Also published as 35 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Dalucum majus (Sm.) Bubani
  • Dalucum ramosum (Vill.) Bubani
  • Melica anceps Lojac.
  • Melica arrecta Kunze
  • Melica aspera Desf.
  • Melica australis Coss. ex Parl.
  • Melica baetica Boutelou ex Willk. & Lange
  • Melica cyrenaica Viv.
  • Melica guruguensis Sennen
  • Melica major Sm.
  • Melica minuta subsp. arrecta (Kunze) Breistr.
  • Melica minuta subsp. latifolia (Coss.) W.Hempel
  • Melica minuta subsp. major (Sm.) Trab.
  • Melica minuta subsp. saxatilis (Sm.) Boiss.
  • Melica minuta var. amana Melderis
  • Melica minuta var. densissima Papp
  • Melica minuta var. latifolia Coss.
  • Melica minuta var. pyramidalis (Lam.) Trab.
  • Melica minuta var. ramosa (Vill.) Fiori
  • Melica minuta var. saxatilis (Sm.) Coss.
  • Melica minuta var. sorrentinoi (Lojac.) W.Hempel
  • Melica montana Cav.
  • Melica pyramidalis Lam.
  • Melica pyramidalis subsp. arrecta (Kunze) P.Fourn.

and 11 more.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.