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iNat·181791SpeciesPlantae3,695 field observations
  1. Plants
  2. ›Vascular Plants
  3. ›flowering plants
  4. ›Dicots
  5. ›geraniums, bridal wreaths, and allies
  6. ›bridal wreath family
  7. ›Melianthus
Cape honey flower
Plate 1 of 4. (c) Oswald Kurten, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC), uploaded by Oswald Kurten · via iNaturalist

Cape honey flower

Melianthus major

Melianthus major, the giant honey flower or kruidjie-roer-my-nie (Afrikaans for 'herb-touch-me-not'), is a species of flowering plant in the family Francoaceae. It is an evergreen suckering shrub, endemic to South Africa and naturalised in India, Australia and New Zealand. It grows to 2–3 m (7–10 ft) tall by 1–3 m (3–10 ft) wide, with pinnate blue-green leaves 30–50 cm (12–20 in) long, which have a distinctive musky odour. Dark red, nectar-laden flower spikes, 30–80 cm (12–31 in) in length, appear in spring, followed by green pods. All parts of the plants are poisonous.

The Latin binomial Melianthus major literally means "large honey flower". The plant is also sometimes called honeybush (along with many other plants).

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Where it lives

Recorded sightings

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geo-referenced records in GBIF, from museums, herbaria and field observers.

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This page is assembled live from iNaturalist, GBIF, Wikipedia, the Source Library and the Internet Archive. It is not yet part of the hand-edited codex. iNaturalist taxon 181791.