White grass is a perennial herb of the genus White grass in the family Grasses with thick rhizomes. The stalks are erect and 30-80 cm tall. The leaf sheath is concentrated at the base of the stalk and has a thick texture; the leaf tongue is membranous, about 2 mm long; the leaf is about 20 cm long and about 8 mm wide, flattened and thin in texture; the stalk leaf is 1-3 cm long, narrow and linear, the apex is tapering and prickly, hard, covered with white powder, and the base is masked with soft hairs. The conical inflorescence is dense, 20 cm long, the spikelets are 4.5–5 mm long, and the basal disc has filamentous soft hairs 12–16 mm long. The fruit is oval in shape and about 1 mm long. The flowering period is from April to June.
White grass with unpored fruit spikes (Shandong Jianzhu University, taken on April 25, 2017)
White grass likes light, slightly shade tolerant, extremely barren, prefers loose moist soil, flooding resistance, drought tolerance, adapts to various soils, and grows the most in loose sandy land. It grows in fieldside, roadside, barren slope grassland, forest edge, sparse forest, shrubland, ditch edge, river embankment, lawn, sandy meadow, desert and seashore, with strong competitive expansion ability. It is widely distributed in tropical, subtropical, warm temperate and temperate low altitude areas; it is distributed throughout China. White grass mainly relies on rhizomes to expand trophic reproduction, eradication is extremely labor-intensive, can be described as "several times inexhaustible, stems broken roots and growth", garden applications often design root blocking facilities.
Fluffy white grass in fruit (Shandong Jianzhu University, photographed on May 13, 2014)
White grass soft hairy fruit inflorescence, white lovely, autumn leaves red, can form a beautiful garden landscape. It can be used as a garden ornamental ground cover, can also be planted on the roadside and water bank, and can also be used to solidify soil and retain water, which is an excellent soil and water conservation plant in barren mountains, and at the same time, it is also an indicator plant with insufficient soil fertility. Of course, it is also a difficult weed to remove, and it must be protected when applied.
White grass with red leaves in autumn (Shandong Jianzhu University, taken on November 20, 2015)