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Sporobolus heterolepis
Also called Prairie Drop Seed, Northern Dropseed
Prairie dropseed is a fine-textured, clump-forming native prairie grass that forms round tufts of arching leaves with airy flower sprays in late summer. It grows slowly from seed, so it is best started as a established plant in a sunny spot with well-drained soil.
Sporobolus heterolepis, commonly known as prairie dropseed, is a species of prairie grass native to the tallgrass and mixed grass prairies of central North America from Texas to southern Canada. It is also found further east, to the Atlantic coast of the United States and Canada, but is much less common beyond the Great Plains and is restricted to specialized habitats. It is found in 27 states and four Canadian provinces.
Prairie dropseed is a plant which typically only thrives in established prairie ecosystems, and does not easily establish when planted from seeds early in prairie restoration attempts. Once established, it is fairly hardy, being able to tolerate brief periods of drought, water inundation, and juglone toxicity from close proximity to black walnut trees. This plant is known to be an important part of the diet of several lepidopteran species. While prairie dropseed often fails to establish in natural prairie ecosystems due to its slow growth, studies investigating its growth under controlled conditions have found that it favors warmer temperatures and moist soil for germination.
Sporobolus schoenoides · Modest prickle grass · Sporobolus pumilus · Cordgrass · Alkali sacaton · Atlantic Cordgrass · Common Cord-grass · Pan dropseed · West Indian Dropseed · West Indian Dropseed · Salt grass · Dropseed
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Sporobolus heterolepis 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.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
