Fountain blood grass

Species name: Pennisetum setaceum

Common name: fountain grass

Location: Ontario

This species of grass is native to Africa, where it survives very hot and very dry temperatures on a regular basis. Despite this, fountain grass can also tolerate very wet conditions, making it an ideal plant for areas where there is a prolonged dry season but also a wet season as well. It can tolerate very cold temperatures (but the leaves should be cut back to the ground level or a few inches above the ground in order to tolerate the winter), and so is a popular plant in Canada and much of the United States. The grass in its natural or wild type form is green, but many varieties and cultivars have been created with different amounts of red; the plant commonly known as "blood grass" is another variety of this species. The major downside to this plant, and the reason why I would never recommend it to be planted in Canada and especially the southern United States is that it is an invasive species when left unchecked, and can completely dominate dry grasslands if given the chance. In Canada, the plant doesn't flower well, and when it does flower (as the plants in the pictures above are doing) it doesn't produce many viable seeds. This is a completely different story than in Georgia and Florida, where it thrives and outcompetes native grass species. If you could tolerate the razor-sharp edges of the blades of the leaves, it would make a fantastic lawn grass! Mowing it constantly would ensure that no seeds are produced.

Other than the ornamental value this plant has, it has no economic value. It was once suggested as a possible biomass crop, but it only grows to 3 or 4 feet at most in a season which is significantly less than other suggested biomass crops. Since it also can be invasive (and can increase the risk of forest fires in an area because of the low, dense, dry vegetation), it has been abandoned as an economically viable biomass species in favour of efforts being concentrated with other grasses like Miscanthus (which you can read all about HERE and HERE).

Miscanthus for fuel?

Species name: Miscanthus sinensis

Common name: Chinese silver grass, Eulalia grass, Suzuki grass

Location: Ontario

As you can probably guess, this species of ornamental grass is native to Asia (China, Korea, Japan and Taiwan). It is a very popular ornamental grass species in North America, if not the most popular. There are about 15 different varieties that are widely grown with varying selected characteristics; this variety (along with a couple of others) has purple flower bracts. Another variety that I've previously blogged about is the infamous zebra grass, which you can read all about HERE.

I'm actually surprised at how many people believe that grasses don't have flowers, just because they don't have a structure that you would traditionally believe to be a flower. Any plant that produces a fruit must have a flower (but not every plant that produces a seed; pine trees, for example, produce seeds but no flowers. Instead the seeds are produced in a cone), and the fruit of a grass has a special name called a caryopsis. The caryopsis of any edible grass species is what we eat: the oatmeal you have for breakfast is the oat caryopsis, the grain that is ground to make flour for your morning toast is the wheat caryopsis, and the rice that you cook for your stir-fry is the rice caryopsis. As a general rule, any flower that's not overly flashy is probably pollinated by wind, since they make no effort to attract insects (through scent, colour, mimicry, etc.).

Miscanthus grasses are very successful reproducers in temperate ecosystems. They produce a huge number of seeds, and can spread through the soil via underground rhizomes. Recently, the suggestion has been made that perhaps they would make a good biofuel alternative compared to corn, since we eat corn and we don't eat Miscanthus. Instead, we could use corn for food (both for us and for livestock), and make fuel out of Miscanthus. A good idea in theory, but the problem is that we make bioethanol currently out of actual corn fruit (the corn caryopsis!) which is full of sugar and easily fermentable by yeast. We do not make bioethanol from corn husks or the green parts of the plant. This would involve turning plant cellulose into sugar, then the sugar into ethanol. Completely possible, but incredibly expensive and slow. The same would have to happen with Miscanthus; this makes the process currently economically a moot point. Any benefit we would get from growing Miscanthus instead of corn would be outweighed by the obscene price it would cost to build cellulose reactors. Until we can find an economically viable way to turn cellulose into sugar, producing bioethanol will always be a very expensive process. Expensive because corn is expensive to grow (unlike Miscanthus which grows like a weed with no chemical or labor inputs) but also because we're diverting perfectly edible food out of the food production chain.

No matter how you pronounce it: the zebra that's a grass

Species name: Miscanthus sinensis

Common name: zebra grass

Location: Ontario

I mentioned in a previous blog post about the tufted hair-grass, Deschampsia cespitosa, that there was essentially only a couple other very easily identifiable grasses without the use of a microscope, and this is one of them! Zebra grass is a grass species native to Asia that has the potential to become incredibly invasive in North America. Thankfully, there are many modern cultivars that do not produce viable seed, so this possibility has been reduced. The plant can still reproduce asexually through the use of rhizomes, but this mostly helps to "fill out" a patch, as opposed to spreading underground to a new location. That being said, I have seen some zebra grass in roadside ditches around southwestern Ontario (with the striped foliage, it's hard to miss!), so some has still very clearly (and very successfully) escaped. With a little background knowledge about this plant before you landscape with it, the chances of zebra grass escaping and becoming an invasive species is slim. This is definitely one plant where gardener responsibility is key: if you remove the plant from your back yard make sure you dispose of it properly, and make sure you plant a hybrid cultivar.

Other than ornamental value, it currently has no other uses. It is, however, being examined as a possible candidate for bioenergy (either through fermentation of the leaves to produce ethanol or burning the plants to produce combustion energy) due to the fact that it is extremely fast-growing during the growing season. It would rival sugarcane as an energy source (sugarcane currently accounts for up to 80% of Brazil's energy production annually in some areas, up to 50% of the energy produced for large cities. The Olympics in 2016 will run exclusively on sugarcane!) for temperate areas where it thrives. It also is not as destructive on an ecosystem like corn (so an attractive alternative for corn-based ethanol) and has much higher levels of genetic variation than typical crops so you don't have to worry as much about pathogens wiping out the entire crop in a growing season.

A word of caution about this grass: while it might not seem that way at first, the edges of the grass have saw-like projections which can seriously harm human skin if grabbed the wrong way. I was weeding in the garden and found this out the hard way. If you've got this grass easily accessible to a small child, make sure you put a fence around it until the child is no longer tempted to grab at the attractive leaves. If not, you might end up being the single reason why Band-Aid is still in business!