Silky browntop
SCIENTIFIC NAME: Eulalia aurea (formerly Eulalia fulva)
CATEGORY: C4 perennial
IDENTIFICATION TIPS
- Dense, warm-season, tussocky perennial to 90cm tall, with short rhizomes
- Nodes often shortly hairy and a dense tuft of long hairs directly below seedhead
- Leaves are blue green with a white mid vein; turning purplish-red at maturity
- Seedhead is sub/digitate, 5-11cm long and consisting of 3-6 erect, silky, reddish-brown branches
- Awned spikelets are paired and both are alike
- Flowers most of the year
CLIMATIC & SOIL REQUIREMENTS
- Found in moist areas on flats and along creeks; moderate drought tolerance; low frost tolerance
GRAZING & NUTRITIONAL VALUE
- Low to moderate grazing value
- No digestibility or crude protein figures are available
MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES
- Moderate feed quality and palatability when it is young, deteriorating with maturity
- Produces good growth after summer rains
- Responds to improved fertility
- Decreases under moderate to high set stocking;
- Persists better under rotational grazing, with dense stands having returned after changing from set to rotational stocking
- Rest stands during wet summers to aid establishment as seedlings have poor survival unless conditions remain moist for an extended period
SIMILAR PLANTS
- Seedhead looks vaguely like red grasses (Bothriochloa macra and B. decipiens) or Queensland bluegrass (Dichanthium sericeum); but neither has silky brown seedheads and their paired spikelets are not alike
(Growth habit: J Kidston)
