Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Flowering grass

This is a picture I took of my neighbor's hayfield just South of our place. I was at the road end of our driveway when I took it. The flowering plants are actually the hay crop, Coastal Bermuda grass.

Last year at this time the field was clear plowed ground. Lewis, the owner of this farm told me that after he tilled the field he did not seed it with anything at all. It seems that the rhizomes of the plant will lay inert for years and grow when ever conditions are right.

This had been a Bermuda grass pasture for quite some time, the the Bahia grass, which is the other common pasture grass in the area, was choking it out in places. The tillage was done to knock the Bahia back and help the Bermuda take over again.

It flowered up after the last rain. Everyone who stops here asks me what kind of wildflower it is. They have a hard time believing that is just grass.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Sorry, but bermudagrass has a very inconspicuous flower. The purple flowers in this field are not from a grass, but likely some broadleaved (dicot) plant that was already present in the soil.