Tuesday, September 26, 2023

Tumble grass time

Temperatures cool down for a few days, then climb back to summer-like levels. Winds, which are more southerly much of the summer, begin to shift to the winter’s northwest and back. The start of leaf fall occurs. Shifting and strengthening winds loosen the tan, spiky seed heads of Eragrostis spectabilis (Purple Lovegrass) also know as tumble grass.

lovegrass in the wind
lovegrass in the wind
Photo by J. Harrington

Here at the eastern edge of the Anoka Sand Plain is prime habitat for tumble grass. The field behind our house is full of it, as are the fields in front of both neighbors to our east. Ditches and sheltered corners have been filling with tumble grass heads the past few days.

One of my favorite characteristics of lovegrass is the way it captures autumn dew and shines magically as the sun rises on September mornings. The fields surrounding us look as if they’re full of clouds that were resting for the night on beds of grass before rising with the warming air of the day.

Thanks to an abundance of pocket gophers and drought this summer, our fields are much the worse for wear. Either this fall or next spring, we’ll do more reseeding with some drought tolerant ground cover that does well in sand. If the lovegrass reseeds itself, so much the better. One nursery is offering seeds at $450/lb (no, I didn’t miss the decimal point), which is too rich for my taste.


The Grass


Bouteloua black
grama grass red
chino side-
oats blue grama grass
hairy buffalo-
grass toboso three-awn
land’s dawn 旦 sun
over sand, tumble
wind-
mill witch- cup- saltgrass
plains love- indiangrass, prairie
cordgrass, pink pappusgrass, sprangle-
top green knotroot
bristle, bluestem, tangle-
head, sacaton
panicles
open, golden drop-
seed blooms desert winter-
grass, awns twist, un-
twist, such
syllables flicker
out of grass
: Nanissáanah
thirst, ghost dance
native
spirits, active
roots, footstalks
to soil as to site, stems
bend, range-
lands wave, seiche
fields sway, clouds
pass over-
grazed grass
staked, fenced
dries, weakens, dies,
fallen
crowns, the grasslands
what
comes to pass, ranch-
hand lands, live-
stock livelihood
wildlife gone, displaced, migrations
impeded, scales im-
balanced
the years
spread, each itself
hitched to everything else
in the universe
nodes
hollowed, drought-
land years, drops
on the hardpan
nature
is endless
regeneration
trichloris, muhly, switch-
grass, wind misses
沙 沙 shasha through the pass-
es, whispering seeds
will pass, will pass
within leaves
listening
grasses, not only
the revelation
but the nature behind
to sustain it, over-
land grasses seeds
spread and grow, rhizome,
stolon to sod, curly
mesquite cotton-
top, draft
to draft 草
ten thousand
grasses, 草 dancing
culms 草 of grass
florescence, sheaths
and blades whorl
flower to
flower, wild
grass, knowing
wind strips, slips
of time, the leaves
words weave, un-
weave the
grass


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