Evans Street Native Grassland (Sunbury)

Evans Street Wildflower Grassland is a four hectare reserve in the heart of Sunbury that contains an array of colourful wildflowers, swathes of native grasses such as Kangaroo Grass and rare native plants. It is a living museum of close to 130 native plants that form part of a critically endangered type of vegetation that was once widespread across Victoria. The site is protected by a Trust for Nature conservation covenant.

The best time to visit: October to February when all the wildflowers are in full bloom.

Review:

A long strip of grassland which is 350m long and 100m wide and has a road and railway line running along the longest sides. There is a gravel path on the eastern side beside Evans Street and a few seats to rest on.

We visited in late September which was probably a little bit too early in the season since the number of flowering plants was quite limited - however you can still see the diversity of plants here.

There are a number of information boards including:

Site of State Significance
This grassland community is home to more than 126 species of plants. It has miraculously survived the pressures of the European way of life, which, since white settlement, have seen native grasslands reduced to less than 0.2 per cent of their original extent in Victoria. Volcanic Plains grasslands like this has been protected throughout Australia, and have been called one of the world's biodiversity hot-spots.

Indigenous people moved onto the volcanic plains somewhere between 20, 000 and 60,000 years ago. Their use of fire influenced the grasslands. The people burnt small areas and returned later as the grasses responded, greening up to encourage grazers which, so lured, made excellent hunting. Women collected yam daisies, a staple part of the diet. These are no longer found at this grassland.

Animals of the grasslands
Grasslands were grazed by soft-padded kangaroos and wallabies. They did little damage and kept-the grasses short, allowing spaces between tussocks for other small plants to flourish. Other animals, now close to extinction, also used the grassland habitat. Examples include the Eastern Barred Bandicoot and the Brush-tailed Bettong.

Birds of prey hovered, hunting for marsupials such as bandicoots, and dunnarts and also for reptiles. Snakes and lizards are still-found in the grassland and on occasion frogs may be heard. Insect life teems in grasslands like this one - look carefully and you will see a wealth of small creatures - butterflies, wolf spiders, mantis, and a host of others that live on the soil, on the plants, and hover or fly over the grassland.

Plants of the grasslands
Here we find a huge variety of plant species. Many and varied wildflowers grow here: several species of orchid; rare native geraniums, a number of lily species, peas, daisies and others. Most cannot usually be grown in cultivated spaces like gardens or parks - they need a soil that has never been disturbed where particular micro creatures live beneath the surface, providing the wildflowers with their often little-known requirements. Here is a landscape that the best human efforts have been unable to replicate.

Spear and wallaby grasses are unique to Australia, and very unlike the pasture grasses or lawn grasses with which we are usually familiar. There are other more unusual Australian grasses like Five-Awned Grass. And of course there is the dominant grass - Kangaroo
Grass, or Themeda triandra-: Amongst the tussocks grow flowers, mosses and lichens.

Photos:

Location

137 Evans Street, Sunbury 3429 Map