Aussie man's 'super lucky' find emerging from ground in massive rural garden
Steve Earl was wandering around his 38-acre property when he spotted a cluster of cream-green coloured flowers.
An Aussie photographer was wandering around his rural home last week, enjoying the “huge variety of wildlife” on display, when he made a “super lucky” discovery in a patch of grass.
In awe of the “beauties”, Steve Earl snapped an image of the cluster of fluffy cream-green coloured flowers emerging from the ground on his 38-acre property near Stawell in Victoria’s west.
“They pop up in the same place every year and are starting to spread out a little wider now,” he told Yahoo News Australia on Wednesday. Mr Earl said he believes the plant has re-sprouted after being eaten by sheep, who also had a good munch on black wattles that grow in his yard.
Curious about the pale green blooms that he “walks or drives past multiple times a day”, Mr Earl turned to locals online for help. His new backyard feature is better known as green mulla mulla, or featherheads, keen naturalists revealed.
Native plant is becoming popular feature in Aussie gardens
It appears the man has snagged himself a great find as the same species of the “hardy” short-lived native (Ptilotus macrocephalus) are becoming a “very popular” addition to Aussie gardens, Botanic Gardens of Sydney’s Chief Scientist, Professor Brett Summerell, told Yahoo News.
“They are relatively easy to grow and make striking displays when planted on mass,” he said, noting the plant is “able to withstand very hot conditions and dry periods very well”.
Once considered widely distributed throughout Australia’s mainland, recent research shows the native that grows up to 50cm tall is now limited to the country’s south-east.
Some mulla mulla species are very rare
Green mulla mulla is relatively common in drier parts of eastern Australia, particularly in western Victoria in places like the Black Range State Park, Professor Summerell explained. “It can also be found across arid parts of the country but is less common in those areas,” he said.
“It isn’t threatened or particularly rare but they tend to be a boom or bust type of species — so quite common and abundant in wetter years, but pretty hard to find in the dry times.”
However, some species of mulla mulla found in Western Australia are considered to be very “rare”.
The critically endangered pyramid mulla mulla is a particularly “interesting one”, Professor Summerell said. The mysterious white herb that grows up to 5cm “occurs in the Greater Brixton Street Wetlands in southeast Perth” and “is extremely localised”.
“Its total area of occupancy is less than 0.2ha so it’s very susceptible to environmental extremes.”
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