Poaceae (Gramineae)/Grass family Archives

Sweetgrasses – Anthoxanthum SPP.: Edible & Medicinal Uses of the Sacred Grass of Wild Plants

In Anishinaabemowin, wiingashic/wiingashk syn. bashkodemashkosiw, sweetgrass is one of the four sacred medicines in their traditions. The other three are asemma (tobacco), bashkodejiibik syn. mashkodewashk (sage), and giizhik (cedar). It’s a sacred herb in the traditional spirituality of various first nations across the Americas. And it’s holy grass in Europe too. Its previous genus, Hierochloë is a …

Reed Grass Syn. Phragmites – Phragmites SPP.

Reed grass (Phragmites spp.) changed my completely black-and-white thinking about herbicides, and I’m sad it came to that! It’s hard to tell our native reed grass from the invasive European subspecies, and it may be hard to tell if a patch has been treated. It’s a tread with caution sort of edible and medicinal wild …