Master Gardeners of Northern Virginia
Over 40 Years of Growing Gardens and Gardeners
Tried and True Native Plant Selections for the Mid-Atlantic
This beautiful, tall woodland grass grows in upright clumps and produces bamboo-like leaves that are held perpendicular at intervals on smooth, round culms (stems). Panicles stand above the foliage with drooping, eye-catching, oat-like spikelets that rustle and shimmer in the breeze.
Grasses and sedges are both classified as monocots. These are plants whose seeds have one cotyledon (the part that will grow into embryonic leaves), and which possess flower parts in multiples of three, leaves with parallel veins, and scattered vascular bundles. While they resemble each other superficially, grasses are members of the Poaceae family and sedges belong to the Cyperaceae family.
As summer’s annuals are beginning to fade and fall perennials are putting on their last show of bloom, native grasses take on a more prominent role in the natural landscape.
