Fall Grasses - Indian Grass

Along the same lines as my last post (Yellow Foxtail Grass), this one is about another grass that has put on a spectacular display in our landscape this fall.  

For the last couple of years, I have tried to mow around clumps of native grasses so they would form seed heads and reseed themselves.  I do this to lend an open prairie look to our front yard. 

Most of the grass in the above picture is Little Bluestem whose stems have a bluish hue early in the summer and turn golden brown in the fall.  However, this year I noticed a clump of grass that was obviously not a variety of bluestem and left it to see if I could identify it when it got bigger.  

I was delighted with it and eventually identified it as Indiangrass.  Here's what it looks like.

The grass stays low most of the year and then gets tall before blooming in early autumn.  It starts out with large, open heads, like this. 

But, as it begins to form seeds, the heads dry and form long, narrow stalks (panicles).

As you can see, it is a beautiful grass.  It was one of the dominant grasses of the tallgrass prairie which once covered large parts of the Midwest. It typically grows 3-5' tall and is noted for its upright form and blue-green foliage.  The foliage turns orange-yellow in fall, as can be seen above, and will continue to provide beauty in the landscape well into winter.