Miscanthus in Fruit I
Originally uploaded by urtica.
I found this lone stem of Chinese silvergrass (Miscanthus sinensis) when I was walking along the Bruce Freeman Rail Trail in Framingham, MA. It will be interesting to revisit the site in the spring to see if this plant is the wild type form or an escaped cultivar.
2 comments:
Miscanthus sinensis was a dificult plant for the Massachusetts Invasive Plant Advisory Group or MIPAG to evaluate. Our criteria for listing as invasive include requirements that a species be naturalized and outcompeting native species in minimally habitats and we lacked formal documentation of this occurring outside of anecdotal evidence.
Because it is somewhat difficult to distinguish unless in flower from Miscanthus sacchariflorus - determined to be likely invasive in Massachusetts -
there is some scepticism among some of my colleagues that invading specimens of Miscanthus sinensis have been accurately reported.
Our family has property in Wareham, MA where this species has definately escaped cutlivation and where IPANE has documented this fact but we need more definative sites to list the species.
Have to admit I was surprised to see M. sacchariflorus on the Mass. banned list while M. sinensis is not. I assume the many profitable cultivars of M. sinensis would make it difficult to argue that one, given that putting a species on the banned list means banning its cultivars and varieties as well.
I will add the specimen I discovered to the IPANE db, assuming I find it growing in the spring.
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