Plant of the Month – Not the Landcare Weed!
Way back when dinosaurs roamed the earth and I was at TAFE doing Certificate 2 in Bush Regeneration* the instructor, a well known environmental consultant in the region, would refer to Lomandra longifolia as “the Landcare weed” as it was probably the most commonly planted species in the latter part of last century. It’s still probably one of the most commonly planted species, they’re fairly indestructible and have a very wide range of habitat tolerances; open paddocks, rocky hillsides, bushland, rainforest and riparian, it’ll grow most places.
(*Umm, confession time, I never did the Weed Recognition exam as I was out working killing off weeds on that day)
And that’s a good thing, however there is a chance we’re creating a genetic bottleneck as a lot of our seed source comes from planted stock, which was grown from seed which was collected from planted stock, which was grown from seed collected from planted stock and so on (I’m guilty of it as well), which means unless you know the seeds came from a wild population you can’t be too sure of the genetic diversity of your planting material. I’m not saying stop planting it, but if you can add in a few wild sourced ones to introduce some extra diversity into the mix.
But, that’s not what I was going to talk about this month, we know that Lomandras are great for holding river banks together, they’ve got a strong root system, they bend over in a fresh or flood and can handle periods of dry, so if we want to increase plant diversity in our riparian areas these are the characteristics we’d be looking for, so let’s look at a few others which we can add into the mix.
Lomandra hystrix
Occurring north from Barrington Tops to Taree is almost identical to Lomandra longifolia the main differences being longer leaves (to about 1.3m), one prominent point at the end of the leaf (L. longifolia generally has 3) and is generally restricted to waterways whereas L. longifolia is more a habitat generalist.
Lomandra hystrix left, Lomandra longifolia right. Image acknowledgment: PlantNET – FloraOnline. Source: Royal Botanic Gardens and Domain Trust.
Carex spp
Given that there’s over a dozen Carex species recorded for the Hunter Region there’s little point trying to describe them all, their stems are triangular which is fairly common in the Cyperaceae, leaves are mostly basal,
Carex, general form. Image acknowledgment: PlantNET – FloraOnline. Source: Royal Botanic Gardens and Domain Trust.
Carex appressa seed head. Photo courtesy John & Patricia Edwards ©The Royal Botanic Gardens & Domain Trust (https://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/)
Juncus spp Rushes.
Another common group, around two dozen species found in the Hunter region, found in wet areas and streamsides, particularly in low flow areas, fairly easily distinguished by leaves being generally round, hollow tapering to a fine point.
Juncus krausii. Image acknowledgment: PlantNET – FloraOnline. Source: Royal Botanic Gardens and Domain Trust.
Other plants suitable for streambanks and wet areas include other members of the Cyperaceae family including Elaeocharis, Bolboschoenus, Machaerina (prev Baumea). I’ve clumped these in together as they’re more emergent than creekbank and have a higher water requirement, they’ll handle drying out ok and generally do best planted straight into the mud.
I don’t have any of these in stock, however I know that Trees in Newcastle and Hunter Indigenous Plants have grown them in the past and Floribunda Endemics at Greta have a few of these listed on their stock list from last August. Here is our list of plant nurseries in the Hunter with contact details.