Let us have grasses today! We never get enough plants here, so I’m delighted to show these photos taken by reader Amanda Ingram. Her notes are indented:
This loyal reader, a fellow William & Mary alumna (who also studied population genetics with Bruce Grant!), thought you might enjoy some wildlife photos from a charming but underappreciated group of plants, the grasses. I’m a systematist, and focus on Eragrostis (the lovegrasses) and their relatives; these photos came from a collecting trip I took several years ago to South Africa and Namibia.
This is Eragrostis bergiana, a charming little grass that grows in what the South Africans call “pans” (slight depressions that are seasonally inundated). I wish I could replace my lawn with it—the plants are just a few centimeters tall, so no mowing required!
The spikelets (clusters of flowers, and yes, grasses have flowers) are especially charming. Here’s a closeup:
The next grass, Stiburus alopecuroides, is a close relative of Eragrostis and is quite beautiful with its purple spikelets and hairy foliage:
A closer look at the spikelets (with anthers in a beautifully contrasting color; AKA plant porn):
And finally, Cladoraphis spinosa, one of the strangest grasses I’ve ever seen:
…and its spikelets (see—it really is a grass!)
For the ailurophiles, here are our two cats: Julius and Cleo, snoozing on the William & Mary seal (in blanket form):
Looks like that grass could grow in New Mexico. Imagine an American yard filled with that. Lawns would be redefined.
Beautiful! Grasses are under appreciated and there are really beautiful ones. Even the plain kind in fields are lovely.
Very good. It looks like the Cladoraphus spinosus is aptly named, and one would not want to dive into it!
Beautiful grasses! Great to see them here as wildlife.
I’m so glad to see grasses, and such lovely ones! (I study grasses, too.)
Interesting to see the Cladoraphis. A member of the genus was introduced in Oregon but did not persist. I’ve always wanted to see it, though at the same time grateful that it is not a weed here.
Wow, the close-ups the spikelets are absolutely beautiful.
Those two kitties though…Be still my heart.
Amanda – I’ll always remember a the taxonomic tag some yrs back on some sort of little plant growing on a flat gravel roof visible from a 2nd fl window at soon-to-be-demolished Millington Hall. Last line was Adverse Habitat.
Also a tag on a plastic flower in the greenhouse, something like Family: Plasticae Genus: Woolworthales
Now I need to,closely at grasses in my backyard
Now I n red to,look at flowers on grasses in my back forty
I love the skikelets. They are so pretty:)