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Muhlenbergia emersleyi (Bull Grass) - An evergreen clumping grass with blue-green foliage to about 2-3 feet tall and wide, with a smaller and more dense habit than Deer grass (Muhlenbergia rigens) and with slightly wider leaves that arch over gracefully. In early summer on into fall appear the loose spikes with dark purple flowers rising above the foliage – this is usually one of the first muhlys to flower for us in the garden.
Plant in full sun or part shade in well-drained soil. Very drought tolerant and cold hardy to 0° F. (USDA Zone 7). We have successfully cut this plant back hard in April to freshen up the clump and it rebounds rapidly to bloom in early June. This is one of the most ornamental of the muhly grasses with soft foliage and open panicles of purplish flowers.
Muhlenbergia emersleyi is native to rocky slopes in oak woodlands from California, Nevada and Arizona east to Texas and south into Mexico as far south as Oaxaca. We originally did not list its range extension into California until we realized it has been identified and collected by professional filed botanist Keir Morse numerous times between 2013 and 2017 on Santa Rosa Mountain in the Peninsular Ranges southeast of Palm Springs in Riverside County. 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 honors John Dare Emersley, an American miner, author and botanical collector who collected throughout the southwestern United States in the late 19th century. It is also commonly called Gooding's Muhly which comes from the scientific name Muhlenbergia gooddingii, a name honoring the American botanist Leslie Newton Goodding (1880–1967, which was a name later synonymized with Muhlenbergia emersleyi. In Mexico it is known as Zacate de Toro, which translates to Bull Grass.
We have grown and sold this very attractive Muhly since 2005 after it was recommended to us in 2003 by California native plant author, consultant and garden designer Carol Bornstein, who first came across this grass at the Mediterranean Garden Symposium held that year in San Francisco. It remains one of Carol's favorite grasses (and ours!) for its nice soft foliage and the airy texture of its flowers. Our first crops were grown from seed purchased from Ginny Hunt at Seedhunt.
This information about Muhlenbergia emersleyi displayed is based on research conducted in our horticultural library and from reliable online resources. We also will relate 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 that we receive from others and we welcome hearing from anyone with additional information, particularly if they can share any cultural information that would aid others in growing it.
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