Thursday 28 January 2016

Grass Seedheads

Australia Day is 26 January so we are having a week of Australian themed posts, not just restricting them to Sundays.

This pretty grass is a mixed blessing in Australia. It is Buffel-grass Cenchrus ciliaris, an important pasture grass for beef cattle in the north, but it is an introduced species. It has naturalised and in places is invasive, extirpating the native species by taking their water. It also burns easily and ferociously, something Australia could mostly do without.

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A la cuisine hier: Beef, Tomato and Pasta soup, which is kind of like liquid bolognaise sauce.

Boudin blanc (white sausage) with mashed potato, carrots and green beans, followed by apple crumble. No custard because we've run out of eggs.

6 comments:

Pollygarter said...

I think we may have buffet grass too, all over our potager. Is that possible? It's a monster, whatever it is - tough as wire, very short life cycle and prolific seeder

Susan said...

Rose doesn't list Buffel Grass in his book on grasses, and it covers this area. I think a contender is Green Bristle Grass Setaria viridis. I've got that in our potager. Another possiblity might be Tor Grass Brachypodium pinnatum. Shall I bring Rose over and we can ID it?

franinoz said...

A controversial species; it's been declared a weed in South Australia.

Le Pré de la Forge said...

You'll have to wait until Summer to see it. All gone now....and I can't imagine the one we've got being good for grazing...it's too silly-cayshus!

Susan said...

OK. Remind me later in the year.

Susan said...

I didn't realise it had actually been declared a weed anywhere. For SA I guess the issue is its combustability outways its usefulness as forage.

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