Decorative Roadside Grasses

     Four common kinds of grass are decorative along country roads in southeastern Pennsylvania, as elsewhere.  They include green foxtails, yellow foxtails, purple tops and crab grass.  The attractive seed heads of these grasses are most noticeable from late summer into winter and are especially  appealing when seen before low-slanting sunlight of early morning and late afternoon.  They are also particularly beautiful when covered with dew, frost or snow that sparkle in the sunlight. 
     The flowers of these grasses are too tiny to be pollinated by insects.  They are, however, fertilized by wind spreading their pollen.   
     Green foxtail grass is up to four to five feet tall, if not mowed, and has two to three-inch-long seed heads with inch-long bristles that make those seed heads appear fluffy, resembling curved foxes' tails on the ends of their bent-over stems.  The numerous seeds are green at first, but turn to light-brown in winter.  The long, thin leaves of this grass turn yellow in fall, which adds to their beauty and interest.  Green foxtail often pioneers disturbed soil where it is an abundant associate of the common weeds lamb's quarters and red root. 
     Yellow foxtail stands up to three feet tall, or more.  It has erect seed heads that are over an inch long and have yellow bristles among the seeds that give this grass its common name.  Those bristles seem to glow yellow and are attractive when seen before low-slanting sunlight.  This type of grass covers whole pastures and abandoned fields, as well as roadsides, and produces seeds in abundance.
     Quite unique, purple top grass has clusters of dull-purple, thin seeds on top of their four-foot-high, slender stems.  Those tightly stacked seeds are oily and feel greasy to the touch.  The seed heads seem to glow purple or dull reddish-purple when seen in front of low sunshine, which adds to those seeds' beauty.
     Crab grass stands two feet high, more or less, and have tiny seeds on long, thin seed heads that point in all directions like skinny fingers.  The beauty of this grass species is exactly the shapes of those long, thin seed heads. 
     All these types of grasses help stop erosion of soil, and provide shelter and food for a variety of small critters.  The long, thin leaves are eaten by a variety of grasshoppers, field crickets, Japanese beetles, the caterpillars of a certain kind of skipper butterfly, wood chucks and cottontail rabbits.  And those little creatures find cover among the densely growing grasses as well.  Field mice, and a variety of small, seed-eating birds eat the small seeds of these grasses through fall and winter.  All those animals add their beauties and interests to those of the grasses. 
     Striped skunks, red foxes, short-tailed shrews, red-tailed hawks, American kestrel hawks and praying mantises are some of the adaptable predators that prey on the above-mentioned small animals hiding in patches of roadside grasses.  The larger, diurnal red-tails and kestrels are the predators most likely seen along roadsides.                      
     Look for these lovely grasses and other plants along rural roadsides this autumn and succeeding ones.  They make those human-made habitats the more beautiful and interesting.