Elegia filacea - Little Golden Curls / Restio / Ornamental Grass - Indigenous grass - 10 Seeds

A magnificent small, upright, tufted restio that shows off its golden–tan sheaths and bracts in early to midsummer, and makes a spectacular filler in the fynbos garden. Elegia filacea is a reed-like, tufted, evergreen perennial, that grows from 0.2 to 0.8 m high and 0.1 m wide. It is compact, and does not have spreading rhizomes or stolons. Culms (stems) are slender, round and unbranched. It produces golden-tan sheaths, which drop off and leave small dark abscission rings at the nodes along the culms. Elegia filacea flowers in early summer to midsummer (October to February), and seeds are released in late summer, before the next cohort of flowers are produced. The fruits are small, triangular nutlets. Elegia filacea is widely distributed in the Cape Floristic Region, occurring in the Western, Northern and Eastern Cape, in Namaqualand, Northern Mountains, West Coast, Cape Peninsula, Southwestern Mountains, Bredasdorp Plains, Swartberg, Little Karoo, Langeberg and Outeniqua Mountains. This species is common in provincial Conservation Areas and National Parks, at 10–2 000 m above sea level. Elegia filacea grows in Fynbos, in well-drained soils derived from Peninsula Formation Sandstone, and on sandy plains and at the bottom of valleys. A wide stand is found at Suurvlakte in the southern Cederberg, where it dominates on rocky slopes and in deep sand on the sandy plain. This is a beautiful small restio to use in any fynbos garden, in a well-drained soil and it can also tolerate alkaline soil. It can be used as a filler among the slow-growing shrubs, such as buchus, to cover the space between the plants or as a border. The easiest way to propagate Elegia filacea is by seed. The seed are sown in the early winter season when the night temperature drops to 5–10ºC and the day temperature is 15–20ºC. Treat the seed with Seed Primer. Soak the seeds or dust them with fungicide and water the sowed seeds with fungicide once a week to prevent fungal infection.

For the best germination results with these seeds we recommend treating these seeds with Cape Seed Primer.

USDA Zone - 8

Season to Sow - Autumn / Spring