Mallee Love-grass

Photos of Mallee Love-grass

Family: Grass (Poaceae syn. Gramineae)

Scientific Name:

Eragrostis dielsii

Mature plants of Mallee Love-grass
Photo: A J Brown

Other Common Name:

Mulka

Status:

Native to Australia

Plant Description:

Tufted, stoloniferous or rhizomatous annual or short-lived perennial grass with branched and prostrate stems and growing to 60 cm high. Leaves are hairless, flat or inrolled to 8 cm long and 3.5 mm wide. Flower-heads are panicles with a few short branches or occasionally reduced to a spike. Spikelets are often clustered and curved to one side, containing 9-60 closely overlapping flowers and from 4-35 mm long and 0.7-1.5 mm wide. Commonly brownish, purplish, pinkish or reddish green.

Habitat:

Common on the dry beds or margins of ephemeral fresh-water and saline lakes. A good coloniser of bare soils but appearing to avoid growing directly in saline or highly waterlogged conditions.

Region	Salinity Class	Waterlogging Class
Mallee, Loddon Murray, Wimmera	S0, *S1	W0, W1, *W2

*likely to tolerate some salinity and waterlogging when water levels are periodically high and salt concentrations low

Comments:

The Love-grasses are a large genus of some 300 species world-wide and at least 70 species in Australia. Few favour wet environments. One exception is Southern Cane-grass (Eragrostis infecunda) which can dominate swampy environments.

Photos of Mallee Love-grass

Mature flower-head of Mallee Love-grass Photo: A J Brown	Flower-head of Mallee Love-grass Photo: A J Brown
Spikelets of Mallee Love-grass with exserted anthers Photo: A J Brown

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