Open Access

Robert F. Parsons

• The Sicilian endemic herbaceous perennial plant Limonium hyblaeum (family Plumbaginaceae) is rapidly becoming a serious weed in South Australia and Victoria, where it invades saltmarshes and rocky coastal sites exposed to salt spray. It has small, light seeds that float and remain viable in sea water and which can also be dispersed readily by wind, animals and vehicles. It can form dense, extensive mats and buds sprouting from rhizomes allow encroachment into dense native vegetation. It seems certain to be apomictic and is readily able to become dominant. Forming dense, compact cushions which accumulate large amounts of fibrous peat, Limonium hyblaeum is the first cushion plant to become naturalized in Australia; the importance of the cushion habit as an adaptation to salt spray is under-appreciated. Some control measures for Limonium hyblaeum have begun in Victoria, but much remains to be done there and in the other southern Australian states; a ban on the sale of the species by nurseries is urgently required.