Weeds of Australia - Fact Sheet

Top Scientific Name Synonyms Family Common Names Origin Naturalised Distribution Notes

Scientific Name

Eragrostis cilianensis (All.) Vignolo ex Janch.

Synonyms

Briza eragrostis L.
Eragrostis major Host
Eragrostis megastachya (Koel.) Link
Poa cilianensis All.
Poa megastachya Koel.

Family

Gramineae (South Australia)
Poaceae (Queensland, New South Wales, the ACT, Victoria, Tasmania, Western Australia and the Northern Territory)

Common Names

black grass, blackgrass, candy grass, gray love grass, gray lovegrass, lovegrass, snake grass, spreading lovegrass, stink eragrostis, stink grass, stink lovegrass, stink-grass, stinkgrass, stinking eragrostis, stinking lovegrass, strongscented lovegrass

Origin

Native to Europe (i.e. Austria, Hungary, Switzerland, Moldova, Ukraine, Albania, Italy, Romania, Yugoslavia, France, Portugal and Spain), Africa (i.e. Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Zaire, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Angola, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa and Swaziland), the Arabian Peninsula (i.e. Saudi Arabia), Western Asia, the Indian Sub-continent (i.e. India and Pakistan) and eastern Asia (i.e. China, Japan, Myanmar and Thailand).

Naturalised Distribution

Widely naturalised throughout most of Australia (i.e. in Queensland, New South Wales, the ACT, Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia, Western Australia and the southern parts of the Northern Territory).

Also naturalised on Lord Howe Island and widely naturalised in other parts of the world.

Notes

This short-lived grass is regarded as an environmental weed in the Northern Territory, Victoria and Western Australia. It is a common weed of agricultural areas and habitation (i.e. crops, pastures, footpaths, gardens, lawns, roadsides, disturbed sites and waste areas), but is also weedy in grasslands and open woodlands in various climatic regions.

For example, stinkgrass (Eragrostis cilianensis) is a weed of semi-arid floodplain grasslands and poplar box/white cypress pine woodlands in the inland regions of New South Wales. It is also present in swamp sclerophyll forest on coastal floodplains in the North Coast bioregion of New South Wales.

Stinkgrass (Eragrostis cilianensis ) is also a weed of arid wetlands in the Northern Territory and western New South Wales (e.g. in the Fivebough and Tuckerbil Wetlands near Leeton), and is common in conservation areas in many parts of the country (e.g. Hallett Cove Conservation Park and Onkaparinga River National Park in South Australia, Kinchega National Park and Booroolong Nature Reserve in New South Wales).

In Hawaii it has been recorded as a weed of drier habitats, including beaches, grasslands and open shrublands.