Challenge #9 Grass

 

Red Natal Grass (Melinis repens) with anthers visible, Moogerah Dam, April 2015.

Red Natal Grass is an environmental weed in Brisbane.

Challenge #9 To document or collect 48 species of grass.

Grass has interested me for years.  Having worked on a field crop for nearly a decade, I developed a fascination with grass, and most journeys in the car have had me observing the roadside diversity. Even the act of mowing in the backyard can reveal at least four species.  But I have needed a reason to focus on these common and often under appreciated plants hence this challenge.

The 'Catalogue of Life' lists 11, 543 species in the family Poaceae (the grasses).

The grass family is the basis for so many of our food systems (unless of course you are on a paleo diet): rice, wheat, barley, corn, sorghum are all grasses .

There are also a number of grasses which are significant weeds. One author, whose name escapes me at the moment, made the observation that it was the advent of dicot herbicides, such as agent orange, which gave so many land managers an ability to deal with dicot weeds, that opened a niche for the monocots to invade and therefore become problematic.