NOT sure if that colourful flower is a wanted plant or a weed? Want to plant a lawn that doesn’t need as much watering or mowing?

These and other environmental questions with a local flavour will now be easier to answer, thanks to a donation of books to the Portland library.

Southwest Environment Alliance has donated four books – Plants of the Great South West, Native or Weed – Plants that can be confused in Portland and district, Environmental Weeds of Warrnambool and Australian Native Grasses – Key Species and Their Uses.

The last-named was written by Ian Chivers and Kath Rawlings – Mr Chivers is not only Australia’s foremost expert on native grasses, a former professor of plant genetics and owner of Native Seeds P/L (the nation’s largest seller of native grass seeds), but also now a resident of Portland and member of Cape Nelson Landcare.

SEA president Lynn Murrell, also head of the Cape Nelson group, said SEA decided at a recent meeting to make the donation.

“It’s important that people get a chance to access this information because it’s important for the environment,” he said.

“It came up at a meeting we had to make these books more available – a lot of people have expressed interest in buying (Mr Chivers’ book) but baulked at the price ($50).”

Australian Native Grasses – Key Species and Their Uses is the third book Mr Chivers has written (his fourth, being worked on at present, is an expansion of it).

He has also consulted in 34 countries around the world.

“The thing is in Australia we’ve just ignored the native grasses but they’ve got every bit the good qualities of imported materials and adaptational advantages as well,” he said.

“Those are things that play in to how they work and what you can use them for, and what the look is – having eucalyptus with introduced grasses beneath them doesn’t quite look the same.”

Mr Chivers said the idea behind his latest book was to make people familiar with native grasses and what they could use them for.

“It might be grazing, rehab, lawns, amenity plantings or viticulture,” he said.

“They can really offer many advantages – in viticulture if you’ve got a grass that doesn’t need watering and sits well in between vines, or with lawns a grass with low growth capacity or watering.

“In pasture they might not require fertiliser, lime or reseeding and the grass doesn’t die but is every bit as nutritionally good for animals.”