It’s difficult not to notice grasses at this time of year – all of the large warm-season grasses seem to be in bloom. Have you taken a closer look at grass flowers? They are amazing to see in bloom, when the anthers and stigmas are visible. Grasses, as you may know, are wind pollinated. Unlike...

If someone asked me to name the most iconic plants of the tallgrass prairie, I would start with the grasses. Who could talk about a prairie without mentioning grass? The top three grasses that scream “tallgrass prairie” are Big Bluestem, Indian Grass, and Switchgrass. Why? These are all robust,...

Last week I attended the North American Prairie Conference in Altoona, Iowa. Shoutout to the blog readers I met there! As is typical for me, on my drive to the conference I was identifying the plants I could see on the roadsides. One grass in particular was ubiquitous in the landscape – Smooth...

A few weeks ago I was leading a plant identification hike in a restored prairie. Naturally in a prairie system, there are a lot of grasses to identify! We saw some tallgrass species as well as some weedy grasses. We also saw one of the 30+ species of Panic grasses that we have in Illinois, ...

Last week while leading a guided hike through a prairie restoration, I was able to observe numerous species of grasses – both those that are desirable in a restoration, and those that are remnants of previous land uses. While I saw native Prairie Dropseed, Switchgrass, Big Bluestem, and Indiangrass...

As someone who pays close attention to plants, weeding becomes an interesting chore. Instead of just looking for plants that are different than what I am trying to grow, I find it fun to identify all of them (and photograph them!). Talk about making a simple task more complicated! While weeding a...

As we enter May, many cool-season grasses are beginning to flower, which makes them a bit easier to identify. One such grass is a European pasture and hay grass called Orchard Grass, Dactylis glomerata. This non-native grass has been used in agriculture for centuries and can persist...

This time of year, I start getting emails with questions about how to identify grasses that people find growing in their yard. After reviewing pictures, oftentimes the grass they want to know more about actually turns out to be a sedge. Sedges are grass-like plants, but they have some distinct...

When I was a kid, we had guinea pigs as pets, Hershey, Graham, and Tristan. One regular part of their diet was hay. Each pig absolutely loved eating the fluffy little grass pieces included in the hay – it turns out those favorite pieces were Timothy. Timothy, Phleum pratense, is a popular...