''Hyparrhenia hirta'' is a species of

grass Poaceae () or Gramineae () is a large and nearly ubiquitous family of monocotyledonous flowering plants commonly known as grasses. It includes the cereal grasses, bamboos and the grasses of natural grassland and species cultivated in lawns a ...

known by the common names common thatching grass and Coolatai grass. It is native to much of Africa and Eurasia, and it is known on other continents as an

introduced species An introduced species, alien species, exotic species, adventive species, immigrant species, foreign species, non-indigenous species, or non-native species is a species living outside its native distributional range, but which has arrived ther ...

. In eastern Australia it is a tenacious noxious weed. In

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the ...

, where it is native, it is very common and one of the most widely used thatching grasses.PlantZAfrica.com
/ref>Bussmann, R. W., et al. (2006)
Plant use of the Maasai of Sekenani Valley, Maasai Mara, Kenya.
''J Ethnobiol Ethnomed'' 2 22. It is also used for

grazing In agriculture, grazing is a method of animal husbandry whereby domestic livestock are allowed outdoors to roam around and consume wild vegetations in order to convert the otherwise indigestible (by human gut) cellulose within grass and other ...

livestock and weaving mats and

baskets A basket is a container that is traditionally constructed from stiff fibers and can be made from a range of materials, including wood splints, runners, and cane. While most baskets are made from plant materials, other materials such as horsehai ...

. This is a perennial grass forming clumps 30 centimetres to one metre tall with tough, dense bases sprouting from rhizomes. The

inflorescence An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a Plant stem, stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches. Morphology (biology), Morphologically, it is the modified part of the shoot of sperma ...

atop the wiry stem is a panicle of hairy spikelets with bent awns up to 3.5 centimetres long. The grass can grow in a variety of habitat types, in dry conditions, heavy, rocky,

eroded Erosion is the action of surface processes (such as water flow or wind) that removes soil, rock, or dissolved material from one location on the Earth's crust, and then transports it to another location where it is deposited. Erosion is disti ...

soils, and disturbed areas.

References

External links

Jepson Manual TreatmentUSDA Plants ProfileGrass Manual Treatment
* Panicoideae Flora of West Tropical Africa Flora of Southern Africa Flora of South Africa Flora of Lebanon Building materials {{Panicoideae-stub