Tropical Grasses

It was raining that night when I was home in our farm one weekend. Upon waking up I went out to see anything which might be attractive for the camera. It is always very refreshing outside the house after the rain,  feels so relaxing and comforting than in the big city, where air pollution makes so much difference.

The grasses are in their flowering stage now. In one or two months, these will mature and seeds will be dispersed by the winds. All photos here are from the wild and not from the garden.

Imperata cylindrica or cogon in the vernacular. This is not flowering yet but in summer months or dry season 

I love this but I don't know its name

Saccharum spontaneum or talahib in vernacular. The white flowers are borne on long slender stalks.

The fruiting structures above stick to clothes that touch it to ensure dispersal.

Napier grasses for feeds of cattle and horses 

Amorseko or love grass in Mt Gulugod Baboy

Mt Gulugod Baboy (Pig Spine), Mabini, Batangas

Let's Think of Grass

Someone reminded me the difference between a grass and a broadleaf! I somehow forgot that difference because in my mind i equated grass with weeds. We only have one local term for both grass and weeds "damo". In local term anything not planted or used as food is "damo". However, weeds are a big group, which include both monocots and dicots. But of course grasses are all monocots, and broadleaves are dicots. Monocots are those with parallel venations on the leaves, while dicots have netted venations. So our local term must have dileneated grass from weed.

Now i recall a simple tutorial on plants for our accountant friend, who is now a president of a big company. We have long discussions and examples to differentiate monocots from dicots, which include all the big ones like bamboo versus mango. You don't assume an accountant to remember monocots and dicots from her Biology class in high school, especially when that has been a few decades ago.

Now let's go back to grasses! I have spotted a few grass flowers lately, so thought of putting them together here. These are all grass weeds. Later, i will be putting the broadleaf weeds.

This is a typical grass, a weed growing on vacant lands as colonizers. They grow at least 2 meters high, but with white beautiful flower spikes. In the first photo, it is growing near a cemented roadside.

They are not very palatable as feeds, maybe because of sharp leaf edges.

The four photos above represent one grass. They are at least 2 ft in height. Animals like cattle, horses and goats also feed on them.



The 2 photos above are the same grass, the 2nd just a close-up of the flowers. They also grow tall like the 1st grass, but this one is shorter and have more colorful flowers. However, they have easily bending stalks. 

 

This is the same flower against the grey cloudy sky.

 The one above have very small flowers that my lens cannot give justice to its details.

This one is maybe the most hated, because they cling to clothes for dispersal. Not only that,

those clinging parts are so sharp and hard that they literally harm and scratch the skin. 

I would like to link this post to  Blooming Friday of Katarina's Roses and Stuff. That is just to provide my temperate country bloggers a BIG Difference, to titillate them that we in this part of the world don't have the Four Seasons. We only have a perennial Summer, with dry and wet months. And our vegetation is also perennially green with lots of loud colors, unless our dry season is so long that kills many plants.

Since these photos are really out in the wilderness and out of the confines of domestic gardens, maybe it is okay to post this in  Outdoor Wednesday courtesy of A Southern Daydreamer.Please visit other participants there.

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The Love Grass: for the Hot, Loud and Proud

We are very familiar with this plant because it is an obnoxious weed. Its habit is clinging to any part of your clothing whenever you come in contact to it. That is its way of plant spread because it doesn't have wings as propagule for the wind to carry it. It can be carried by strong winds though not very far, clinging assures of far and easy transport to distant places.

We call it 'amorseko' or 'amorseco'. I just discovered its English common name as love grass now, when i looked for its scientific name, which is also eluding because there are so many. I chose Chrysopogon aciculatus from among them, not as an educated choice but because it sounds like so! Please pardon my laziness, it is not a habit but enduced by lack of time. Maybe it is called love grass because it clings! It just doesn't sound proper though.

I am posting it in this meme because it stands tall as proud as it can! It might also be so because its location where i photographed it is on top of a mountain, overlooking the sea, towering above the inhabited parts. What else can you be, but be proud! And of course its clinging habit makes it hot, and i would like to warn you that your skin under the cloth it clings feel so itchy and hot, as in 'HOT', that you get irked and immediately feel removing clothes and disposed them off. In my case, i diligently removed each clinging part and disposed them to the fire, for good! The end of its tribe!

Look at them looking tall and proud, against the backdrop of green and yellow vegetation, plus the blue sea at the background.

It surely is invasive and constant grazing doesn't limit its spread on top of this mountain, which is fully conquered by it.

 

This is Gulugod Baboy or 'Pig's Spine', as direct translation, which i posted earlier this year if you remember. It's almost zero visibility in the current mornings, and very cold. The fog left only at 9:00 am when the sun is already high up.

I didn't have the inkling that it is full of Amorseco during the rainy season. We were so happy to compare the view differences with dry season except for this grass. My jogging pants were full of its propagules, but the amorseco certainly made this climb more memorable.

For other Hot, Loud and Proud posts please visit:
http://aplantfanatic.blogspot.com/