Australian man’s ‘super lucky’ find emerges from soil in rural garden

An Australian photographer was wandering around his rural home last week, enjoying the “huge variety of wildlife on display” when he made a “super lucky” discovery in a patch of grass.

In awe of the “beauties,” Steve Earl snapped a photo of the cluster of fluffy cream-green flowers poking out of the ground on his 38-acre property near Black Range State Park in western Victoria.

“They show up in the same place every year and are now spreading a bit further,” he told Yahoo News Australia on Wednesday. Mr Earl said he believed the plant re-sprouted after being eaten by sheep, who had also eaten the black wattles growing in his garden.

Curious about the pale green blooms that he “walks or drives past several times a day,” Mr. Earl turned to locals online for help. Keen naturalists revealed that his new backyard feature is better known as “Green Mulla Mulla” or “Featherheads”.

Native plants are becoming increasingly popular in Australian gardens

It appears the man has made a great find, as the same species of the “hardy”, short-lived native (Ptilotus Macrocephalus) are becoming a “very popular” addition to Australian gardens. Sydney Botanic Gardens chief scientist Professor Brett Summerell told Yahoo News.

“They are relatively easy to grow and make a striking appearance in mass plantings,” he said, noting that the plant “can survive very hot conditions and dry periods very well.”

The plant was once thought to be widespread across mainland Australia, but recent research shows that the native species, which grows up to 50cm tall, is now only found in the south-east of the country.

Some Mulla Mulla species are very rare

Green Mulla Mulla is relatively common in drier parts of eastern Australia, particularly in western Victoria in places such as Black Range State Park, Professor Summerell explained. “It also occurs in dry parts of the country, but is less common there,” he said.

“It’s not threatened or particularly rare, but it tends to be a boom or bust species – so it’s quite common and abundant in wetter years, but quite hard to find in drier times.”

However, some Mulla Mulla species found in Western Australia are considered very “rare”.

The critically endangered Mulla Mulla pyramid was particularly “interesting,” Professor Summerell said. The mysterious white herb, which grows up to 5cm, “occurs in the Greater Brixton Street Wetlands in southeast Perth” and “is extremely locally distributed”.

“Its total usable area is less than 0.2 hectares and is therefore very vulnerable to environmental extremes.”

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