The open plant encyclopedia
Snap a photo or search by any name to see how to care for it, where it comes from, whether it's safe, and a 3D model you can turn.
The plants people record most in your country, and ones that grow there wild.
Filter by what you want to do, shape, origin, country, care and safety.
Lygeum is a genus of Mediterranean grasses whose only species is esparto grass (Lygeum spartum), a tough, drought-tolerant perennial. It is grown outdoors in hot, dry, open ground rather than as a garden or houseplant.
Lygeum is a genus of Mediterranean plants in the grass family. It is placed in its own tribe Lygeeae, which is sister to Nardeae.
The only known species is Lygeum spartum, commonly called esparto grass, cord grass or albardine, which is distributed in arid areas around the Mediterranean Sea. It is similar in appearance to Macrochloa tenacissima and both species are used to produce a fibre product known as esparto or esparto grass.
Lygeum spartinum is native to southern Europe and North Africa, where its distribution includes Crete, Italy, Spain, Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, and Tunisia. It may have been introduced to Kashmir.
Lygeum spartum fibres have high tensile strength and flexibility, and is used for making ropes, sandals, baskets, mats and other durable articles. They have also used in the manufacture of high quality paper. It can also be used locally as a fodder for livestock and to stabilise sand dunes and rehabilitate salt soils, due to its tolerance of saline conditions.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Lygeum by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
