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Muhlenbergia pubescens (Soft Muhly) - This clumping grass grows to 18 to 24 inches tall with blue-green narrow recurved leaves that have soft hairs that give the foliage a shimmering soft look. In the summer appear the tiny violet flowers held on delicate branches from a hairy inflorescence that rises just above the leaves. The flowers then mature to a wheat color.
Best when planted in full sun in a well-drained soil with occasional irrigation but be careful not to want to over water this grass or plant it in too deeply a shaded area. After the first frost, the foliage turns a beautiful reddish purple, but during hard freezes the plant will die back.
Muhlenbergia pubescens grows naturally through much of central and northern Mexico. The German naturalist Johann Christian Daniel von Schreber (1739-1810) named the genus for Gotthilf Heinrich (Henry) Ernst Muhlenberg (1753-1815) who was American born but returned to his ancestral Germany for schooling and later returned to America. He was an ordained Lutheran minister but devoted his free time to the study of the botany. The specific epithet means pubescent in reference to the hairs on the leaves.
We grew and sold this interesting plant from 1997 until 2013 after getting our original plant from Dave Fross at Native Sons Wholesale Nursery.
The information about Muhlenbergia pubescens displayed on this web page is based on our research conducted in the nursery's horticultural library and from reliable online resources. We also include observations made about it as it grows in our nursery gardens and other gardens we have visited, as well how the crops have performed in containers in our nursery field. We will also incorporate comments we receive from others and welcome hearing from anyone with additional information, particularly if they can share cultural information that would aid others in growing this plant. |
