Greater Quaking-grass
Briza maxima
Grass family (Poaceae)
Quivering and shivering
In many grasses it is difficult to reveal the flowers clearly visible, but with the greater quaking grass the lantern-like flowers hang in panicles. These panicles of flattened spikelets hang on slender stalks and when they move about in the wind, the grass seems to quiver. This movement sends the ripe seeds from these annuals far and wide. Greater quaking grass grows along roadsides and in dry grasslands in the Channel Islands, the Mediterranean region and deep into Asia. In the Netherlands this grass is rare.
Briza media, a smaller, Dutch variety, strongly resembles the greater quaking grass and is called ‘little quiverer/little beavers’ in Dutch. It not only quivers in the wind like the greater quaking grass but its spikelets also resemble beaver tails.
Themes
Leaves are semi-edible. In the face of starvation, a lot of nutrients can be obtained from the grass through chewing on the blades, sucking out the juices and then spitting out the pulp.
Briza maxima has edible seeds and whilst most grass seeds are edible the seeds of some species are dark in colour and contain a poisonous fungus that can be fatal if large quantities are consumed.
Briza maxima is a very attractive ornamental grass.
Details
| Description: | Grasses, incl. bamboes, up to 60 cm, pole-shaped with narrow, blue-green leaves, flowers with large heart-shaped spiklets, green at first later turning cream. |
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| Distributions: | Native to northern africa, the azores, western asia and southern europe, and is cultivated or naturalised in the british isles, australasia, the western united states, central and south america and hawaii. |
| Habitat: | In gardens |
| Year cycle: | Flowers only once (monocarpic annuals) |
| Hardiness: | -4 - 5 f (hardy - very cold winter) |
| Flowering period: | Juni - augustus |
| Flower color: | White, green |
| At its best: | Juni - augustus |