Bush Muhly
Muhlenbergia porteri
Family: Poaceae
Perennial grass from a hard, knotty base with slender, wiry, geniculate, much-branched stems reaching about a foot or more high and spreading about 2-3’. This species might be missed until it starts to bloom with its intense red flowers. This species is generally deciduous in winter.
Full to part sun. Moderate water will encourage good blooming in fall, but plants can live on rainfall once established if in protection of shrub or tree.
Important nesting material grass for birds in the low desert. Good tortoise enclosure plant.
Native grasses are extremely important plants for wildlife: as nesting material for birds as well as native bees and other insects, as habitat for many organisms, and as food: adult insects eat the foliage, granivorous birds depend on many species for seeds. Many bee species collect the pollen of many species of grasses. Highly palatable and well liked by livestock despite the wiry seedhead stems.
Photo by Paul Donahue, iNaturalist
Muhlenbergia porteri on SEINET
Larval host for the following species:
Nabokov’s Satyr (Cyllopsis pyracmon ssp. henshawi)
Red Bordered Satyr (Gyrocheilus patrobas ssp. tritonia)
Edwards's Skipperling (Oarisma edwardsii)
Large Roadside-Skipper (Amblyscirtes exoteria)
Moon-marked Skipper (Atrytonopsis lunus)
Grasses also play an important role in the ecology of soil, and because they are monocots, they can be planted close to other species of plants (the nature of the root systems of monocots renders them less imposing on neighboring plants). They hold soil down and help prevent erosion. Many species are pioneer plants that convert disturbed soils into hospitable places for other plants. This is a fair to good forage plant.
Muhlenbergia is named for Gotthilf Heinrich Ernst Muhlenberg (1753-1815) a clergyman and botanist from Pennsylvania; while porteri is named for Thomas Conrad Porter (1822-1901) an American botanist. There are 180 species of Muhlenbergia with the greatest number native to the southwestern United States and Mexico; there are also native species in Canada, Central and South America and in Asia.
Found among boulders on rocky slopes and on cliffs, in dry arroyos, desert flats, and grasslands, frequently in the protection of shrubs, from 2,000-6,000 ft. often found growing under mesquites, or desert bushes. Native to southern California and southern Nevada east to southern Colorado, south through most of Arizona, New Mexico and western Texas; south into central Mexico.
Inflorescence detail by Max Licher, SEINET
This species gets its common name, bush muhly, from its roundish bushy habit. Photo by Lilly Setters, iNaturalist
A patch of dormant bush muhly at the base of a tree. Photo by Sue Carnahan, SEINET