Skip to main content

Elephant grass (Pennisetum purpureum)

Rumput gajah or elephant grass or napier grass or Cenchrus purpureus (Pennisetum purpureum) is a plant species in Poaceae, a large and highly nutritious grass that is usually used for animal feed including cattle, goats, elephants, has resistance in the sun, has many varieties and cultivars.

P. purpureum grows upright like sugar cane and is up to 5 m high, 3 cm in diameter and easy to breed. The round stems, woody and hard, covered with leaf shields and haired, have up to 20 segments to grow new shoots that will become new stems.

Dlium Elephant grass (Pennisetum purpureum)

Ribbon-shaped leaves, length 30-120 cm, width less than 3 cm, thin as paper. The upper surface is green, the lower surface is pale green, both surfaces and margins are rough by hair. A single bone in the middle, large and white.

Flowers grow in long bunches and erect with a golden color, grow at the tip of the uppermost stem, the seeds will have contents when growing at an altitude of more than 1000 meters. Leaves and stems contain 19.9% dry matter, 10.2% crude protein, 1.6% fat, 34.2% crude fiber, 11.7% ash and 42.3% extract material without nitrogen.

Elephant grass is very adaptive and productivity remains high in a variety of soil textures and marginal land, but optimal production is 60-70% soil moisture, pH 6.5, 1000 mm/year rainfall and short days with critical photoperiods 13-12 hour.

Rumput gajah has several cultivars including Muaklek, Bana, Taiwan A148, Common, Wruk wona, Tifton and Kampheng san. Many are cultivated for the purposes of animal feed, fiber production materials, soil erosion barriers and hedges.





Kingdom: Plantae
Phylum: Tracheophyta
Subphylum: Angiospermae
Class: Liliopsida
Order: Poales
Family: Poaceae
Subfamily: Panicoideae
Tribe: Paniceae
Genus: Pennisetum
Species: Pennisetum purpureum

Popular Posts

Purwaceng (Pimpinella pruatjan)

Purwaceng or purwoceng or antanan gunung or Viagra of Java ( Pimpinella pruatjan or Pimpinella priatjan ) are small termas growing horizontally in Apiaceae, growing in villages on Dieng Plateau, Central Java Province, Indonesia, at 1,500 to 2,000 meters above sea level, the roots have medicinal properties for aphrodisiacs and are usually processed in powder form for a mixture of coffee or milk. P. pruatjan grows flat on the ground but does not propagate, small leaves are reddish green for 1-3 cm in diameter. This plant is only found in Java and grows in high mountain areas. A low population where industrial demand is very high results in increasingly scarce. Another place that is likely to become a purwaceng habitat is the Iyang Mountains and the Tengger Mountains in East Java Province. Efforts to multiply and cultivate have a big problem where these plants have difficulty producing seeds. In vitro propagation research through tissue cultivation has been carried out to overcome ...

Six new species forming the Sumbana species group in genus Nemophora Hoffmannsegg 1798 from Indonesia

NEWS - Sumbawa longhorn ( Nemophora sumbana Kozlov, sp. nov.), Timor longhorn ( Nemophora timorella Kozlov, sp. nov.), shining shade longhorn ( Nemophora umbronitidella Kozlov, sp. nov.), Wegner longhorn ( Nemophora wegneri Kozlov, sp. nov.), long brush longhorn ( Nemophora longipeniculella Kozlov, sp. nov.), and short brush longhorn ( Nemophora brevipeniculella Kozlov, sp. nov.) from the Lesser Sunda Islands in Indonesia. The Lesser Sunda Islands consist of two parallel, linear oceanic island chains, including Bali, Lombok, Sumbawa, Flores, Sumba, Sawu, Timor, Alor, and Tanimbar. The oldest of these islands have been continuously occurring for 10–12 million years. This long period of isolation has allowed significant in situ diversification, making the Lesser Sundas home to many endemic species. This island chain may act as a two-way filter for organisms migrating between the world's two great biogeographic regions, Asia and Australia-Papua. The recognition of a striking cli...

New living fossil, Amethyst worm lizard (Amphisbaena amethysta), from Espinhaço Mountain Range, Brazil

NEWS - New species from the northern Espinhaço Mountains, Caetité municipality, Bahia state, Brazil. Amethyst worm lizard ( Amphisbaena amethysta ) is the 71st species of the genus with 4 precloacal pores and the 22nd species of Caatinga morphoclimatic domain. Identification of the new species shows the reptiles of the Mountains are far from complete and may contain greater diversity of endemic taxa. A. amethysta can be distinguished by its anteriorly convex snout, slightly compressed and unkeeled, pectoral scales arranged in regular annuli, four precloacal pores, distinct head shield, 185-199 dorsal and half annuli, 13-16 caudal annuli, a conspicuous autotomy spot between the 4th-6th caudal annuli, 16-21 dorsal and ventral segments in the middle of the body, 3/3 supralabials, 3/3 infralabials and a smooth and rounded tail tip. A. amethysta occurs in areas with an average elevation of 1000 meters in patches of deciduous and semi-deciduous forests associated with valleys, slopes, fore...