Eragrostis minor Seeds | Little Lovegrass
LATIN NAME: Eragrostis minor
COMMON NAME: Little Lovegrass
Plant Profile
Little Lovegrass is a small annual of the grass family, forming a neat tuft of grey-green, rather stiff leaves 10 to 40 cm tall. In summer it sends up open, airy panicles whose many tiny spikelets are held on hair-fine branches, so that the whole head shimmers and catches the light; by late summer the plant turns a dull reddish brown and sheds its seed.
It is a plant of warm, sandy, disturbed ground and has followed roads, railways and building sites across much of the world, from Europe and Africa to the Americas and Australia. In a gravel garden or a crack in a pavement it looks deliberate rather than weedy.
Science & Biotechnology
Eragrostis is a C4 genus, and the pathway is what lets these grasses grow fast in hot, dry, open ground where C3 grasses stall. Little Lovegrass completes its life in a single season, setting seed within weeks of germination and holding much of it in the soil as a persistent bank that germinates whenever the ground is disturbed.
The species also practises cleistogamy: many of its spikelets never open and set seed by self-pollination inside the glumes, which guarantees a crop even in poor weather and helps explain how one plant can establish a colony far from home. Its seed heads are a minor food source for small seed-eating birds.
Uses & Benefits
Its practical role is as a nurse plant on sand. The dense fibrous roots bind loose soil, and the quick cover it makes on spoil, dunes and bare patches gives slower perennials a chance to establish. Conservation seed mixes for sandy heath and brownfield sites often include it for that reason.
In the garden it earns a place at the front of a gravel bed or in a wildflower strip, where its fine texture contrasts with broader leaves, and its seed heads last well into autumn. Cut it back before it sheds if self-sowing is unwanted; leave it if a repeating colony is the aim. In the southern United States it is one of the grasses that moves into over-watered lawns and sandy roadsides, and its tolerance of compacted, infertile ground has made it a candidate for stabilising mine tailings.
Growing from Seed
Surface-sow in spring, since the seed needs light and warmth: press it into a firmed, sandy compost but do not cover it, and keep the tray at 20 to 25 °C. Germination is quick, usually within two weeks, and the seedlings grow fast enough to be planted out within six weeks.
Little Lovegrass wants full sun and sharp drainage; in rich, damp soil it flops and loses its shape. Water only until establishment, then leave it to the weather. For a repeating display, let the last heads ripen and shed where they stand, then thin the seedlings the following spring.
Our Take
A small, self-reliant grass for gravel and dry ground, useful as cover on sand and quietly ornamental in seed. It asks for sun and drainage and nothing more.
Related Reading
Gardeners who grow Little Lovegrass often pair it with these related subjects: