Trees

Trees:

Wiregrass Region

The Wiregrass Region or Wiregrass Country is an area of the Southern United States encompassing parts of southern Georgia, southeastern Alabama, and the Florida Panhandle. The region is named for the native Aristida stricta, commonly known as wiregrass due to its texture.

Wiregrass, also called pineland threeawn, is one of the most common grasses in the southern pine flatwoods and upland sandhills. It is a favorite food of gopher tortoises and quail and provides valuable cover for many birds, reptiles, and small mammals. The young plants may also be used as a forage by livestock.
This is a fast growing species that regenerates quickly after fires. The plant depends on regular summer burning in order to stimulate flowering and seed production. Wiregrass is often confused with a similar plant, piney woods dropseed (Sporobolus junceus), which also has long, thin, wiry leaves. However, wiregrass has small tufts of hair at the leaf base; the dropseed stems are smooth and hairless. Wiregrass is limited to the southeastern United States. It ranges from Mississippi to Florida but only as far north as South Carolina.  Identifying Characteristics Size/Form: Wiregrass is a perennial bunch grass that grows in dense, spreading tufts, reaching heights of 1½' to 3'. Leaves: The leaves are long, thin, wiry, or needle-like with tufts of fine, white fuzz around the leaf base. Margins are rolled inward. Flowers: Wiregrass flowers are tiny and close to the flower stalk with 3 distinct hair-like awns protruding from each flower. Fruit: The fruit is a tiny, yellowish grain (seed). Habitat: Wiregrass grows prolifically in flatwoods and dry sandhills. It is a common understory cover in longleaf pine forests and on newly burned sites.

Uses:

It is an unpalatable grass due to the bitter taste and wire leaves.

It is one of the first grasses to sprout in spring and is then utilised when little other grazing is available.

Its abundance in veld is an indicator of overgrazing in the past.

It seems to increase through regular veld fires and is one of the firs grasses to disappear when is not grazed or defoliated in other manner. Wire grass contains an essential oil about 25 ingredients, of which cineole and camphene are two of the most important.   

Common Thatching Grass

   (Hyparrhenia Hirta)

Hyparrhenia hirta is a species of grass known by the common names common thatching grass and Coolatai grass. It is native to much of Africa and Eurasia, and it is known on other continents as an introduced species. In eastern Australia it is a tenacious noxious weed. In South Africa, where it is native, it is very common and one of the most widely used thatching grasses. It is also used for grazing livestock and weaving mats and baskets.
This is a perennial grass forming clumps 30 centimetres to one metre tall with tough, dense bases sprouting from rhizomes. The inflorescence atop the wiry stem is a panicle of hairy spikelets with bent awns up to 3.5 centimetres long. The grass can grow in a variety of habitat types, in dry conditions, heavy, rocky, eroded soils, and disturbed areas.

Common Thatching grass
Hyparrhenia hirta is recognized by its hard basal tussock, rough narrow leaves and a scanty panicle of pairs of white villous racemes which do not deflex (bend downwards).

Description:

Hyparrhenia hirta is a wiry, tufted perennial grass usually 300-800 mm high, rhizomatous and with slender culms. The leaf blade is 20-150 x 1-2(-4) mm. The panicle is scanty, consisting of 2-10 raceme pairs which are 20-40 mm long, never deflexed, bases unequal, cylindrical, 8–14 awns, 10-35 mm long, with hairs up to 0.3 mm long. The base of the upper raceme has 0–1 homogamous (same sex) pairs of spikelets. A sessile spikelet is 4.0–6.5 mm long, yellowish green to violet, white-villous and the callus is acute. The pedicelled spikelet is white villous and awnless. Flowering time: September to June. See glossary for terms in Gibbs Russell et al. (1990).

Conservation status:

The SANBI Threatened Plants Programme has not, as yet, indicated its conservation status, but so far, Hyparrhenia hirta is widespread, and is good for grazing in spring and early summer, so conservation is practised indirectly.
Conservation status:

The SANBI Threatened Plants Programme has not, as yet, indicated its conservation status, but so far, Hyparrhenia hirta is widespread, and is good for grazing in spring and early summer, so conservation is practised indirectly.
Derivation of name and historical aspects:

Hyparrhenia hirta is derived from the Greek words, hypo, meaning under, and arren, meaning masculine, alluding to the male spikelets at the bases of the racemes. The species name hirta is from the a Latin word meaning hairy, probably referring to the hairy spikelets. The genus Hyparrhenia has ± 55 species, mostly in Africa, a few species in other tropical regions and the Mediterranean, and 20 in southern Africa, where it is widespread.

Ecology:
Hyparrhenia hirta is pollinated and seed dispersed by wind.
Hyparrhenia hirta is the most competitive species in infertile areas, but not in areas where other fertile species occur. Once established, Hyparrhenia hirta is difficult to control.

Uses and cultural aspects:
Hyparrhenia hirta is probably the most popular thatching grass used in South Africa. It is grazed by livestock early in the growing season and after fires, but becomes less palatable for grazing later. In South Africa and the USA this grass is seen as a drought resistant grass, which protects the soil and stabilizes hard, gravelly soil and eroded places. It is also used to weave mats and baskets.

Hyparrhenia hirta is self-fertile, enabling new populations to arise from a single plant. Seed can germinate readily in different light regimes, over a wide range of temperatures, pH levels and under marginal water stress. Seedlings can emerge from a depth of up to 9 cm. Seedling recruitment can occur within established stands and in soil with a plant litter layer.

 Foxtail Buffalo Grass:   

Cenchrus ciliaris is a perennial, tufted grass. The inflorescence is a bristly 'spike' (like a cat's tail) and is nearly always purple to straw-coloured.

Description:

A tufted perennial grass, 60–100 cm high. Leaf blades 100–250 x 4–8 mm. Inflorescence (Gibbs Russell et al. 1990): a bristly false spike, 40–120 mm long, straw- or purple-coloured; all bristles are joined at base below spikelet cluster to form a small inconspicuous disc, bristles mostly 5–10 mm long, outer bristles slender and scabrid, inner bristles slender and plumose. Spikelet 4–5 x 3 mm; lower glume (the bracts at the base of the spikelet) 1-nerved or nerveless and upper glume 1–3-nerved, minutely awned; lower lemma usually 5-nerved, minutely awned; upper lemma similar to lower lemma (encloses grass flower), slightly thicker in texture; anther 1.5–2.7 mm long. A variable species, with many cultivars available e.g. Malopo. Flowering: August to April.

 

Conservation status:

The SANBI Threatened Plants Programme has not yet indicated its conservation status, but as it is a drought-resistant perennial, which, during drought plays an important role as a pasture to livestock, it is valued and conservation is practiced indirectly.

Distribution and habitat:

It occurs in the more arid parts of southern Africa and tropical Africa, the Mediterranean areas, and in Arabia to India. Introduced to Australia and other hot, drier areas of the world where it has been imported as cultivated pasture. Foxtail buffalo grass grows in dry, warm parts. It grows in all types of soil, but mostly in sandy soil and other well-drained soil types. It is often found along roadsides where it utilizes the additional runoff rainwater.

Ecology:

Common in hot dry areas, especially on sandy soils where it is often ruderal (grows in waste places), and also often on termitaria, on all types of soil. Cenchrus ciliaris ia pollinated by wind. It is adapted to fairly heavy grazing and a wide variety of conditions.
Uses and cultural aspects:
Cenchrus ciliaris is a palatable species with a high leaf production. Generally planted as pasture (Farming in South Africa leaflet 114. 1983. A cultivation guide). It is one of the most popular cultivated pastures, especially in the more arid
parts, with many commercially available cultivars. Foxtail buffalo grass can endure trampling.

It is easy to grow Cenchrus ciliaris, especially in lower rainfall areas on sandy soils. It is easily established by seeding. It is a hardy cultivated pasture with a deep root system (up to 2 m). Foxtail buffalo grass is difficult to establish in clay soil, but once established, it grows well. In the garden it is best used as a lawn grass, this is common in India.