Find a plant:

Genus Sporobolus (Dropseed, Rushgrass)

Sporobolus heterolepis Photo/Illustration: Michelle Gervais

spoor-OB-oh-lus

Common Name: Dropseed, Rushgrass

These annual and perennial grasses are at home on the prairies and grasslands of western North America. They are suitable for naturalizing in meadows and wild gardens, for erosion control, and for use where heat and drought tolerance is needed. They are also excellent as accents in the garden and for use in dried flower arrangements.
Noteworthy characteristics: These native grasses are grown for the fine texture of their linear leaves and the billowy, cloud-like inflorescences and seeds.
Care: Grow in any well-drained soil in full sun. Prefers dry and rocky but is tolerant of a wide range of soils.
Propagation: Sow seed in situ in spring or fall. Divide in spring or fall.
Problems: Root rot, rust, seed smut, leaf spots.

Species, varieties and cultivars for genus Sporobolus

Sporobolus heterolepsis
(Prairie dropseed)

(1 user review)

Hardiness Zones:

The finely textured, green leaves of this slow-growing, clump-forming perennial turn golden yellow in autumn. It bears cloudy panicles of fragrant, pale-pink to tawny flowers 5 to 10 inches long in late summer, reaching 3 feet tall.

Sporobolus wrightii
(Wright's dropseed)

(1 user review)

Hardiness Zones:

Largely untried in the northern states, Wright's dropseed is a great new grass that is becoming a substitute in southern gardens for unwieldy pampas grass (Cortaderia selloana). Heat and drought tolerant, its gray-green foliage sports airy clouds of flowers atop tall stems in summer. This grass is good as a single specimen or in a group as a showy backdrop.