North American Maygrass Gardens: Drinks, Flower Arrangements and Food

Summary: North American maygrass gardens have nutritious grains for drinks, food and medicine and shining structures for cut and dried flower arrangements.

maygrass (Phalaris caroliniana): Robert H. Mohlenbrock/USDA NRCS Wetland Science Institute (WSI), Public Domain, via USDA NRCS (Natural Resources Conservation Service) PLANTS Database

North American maygrass gardens are native to the southeastern United States, naturalizable in southwestern Canada and naturalized southward into Mexico and westward through the American Southwest and the United States' Pacific coast.

The native winter annual grass bears the common name of maygrass because of its boasting attractive, edible, food processing-friendly, nutritious, starchy seeds in May and June. It carries the additional common name of Carolina canarygrass because of its taxonomic association with specimens from South Carolina and its wildlife reputation as bird feed. It draws name recognition among cultural anthropologists, native plant enthusiasts and paleoethnobotanists as the dependable source of indigenous drink, food and medicine for over four millennia.

Maygrass elicits modern-day admiration in cut and dried flower arrangements and in soil erosion, stormwater runoff and water quality projects in wetlands and on disturbed grounds.

Maygrass fits into the scientific nomenclature as Phalaris caroliniana (Carolinian helmet ridge) since descriptions in Thomas Walter's (Sept. 4, 1740-Jan. 17, 1789) Flora Caroliniana of 1788.

Two helmet ridge-like, shining, smooth glumes (leaf-like, membranous outer bracts) on the first officially described specimen from South Carolina generate the genus and the species names. Mature, 3.28- to 4.92-foot (1- to 1.5-meter) heights on disturbed, marshy and swampy grounds at altitudes under 6,000 feet (1,828.8 meters) highlight maygrass's signature uppermost parts. The 19.68- to 39.37-inch- (5- to 10-decimeter-) tall stem includes a 0.19- to 3.35-inch- (0.5- to 8.5-centimeter-) long, 0.32- to 0.79-inch- (0.8- to 2-centimeter-) wide inflorescence.

North American maygrass gardens' oval or ovalish, tip-top panicles (loose-branching flower clusters) juggle female and male parts within their protective enclosure by glumes, lemma and palea.

Three stamens keep cream-colored, pale yellow or rose-tinged 0.03- to 0.04-inch- (0.8- to 1.2-millimeter-) long anthers on white 0.16 to 0.19-inch- (4 to 5-millimeter-) long filaments. The 0.028- to 0.032-inch (0.7- to 0.8-millimeter) by 0.012- to 0.017-inch (0.3- to 0.45-millimeter) ovary on colorless 0.12- to 0.14-inch- (3.5-millimeter-) long pistils looks pale yellow.

April's brown, green, rose, white and yellow blooms and yellow pollen muster May's and June's non-explosive, 0.12-plus-inch- (3.18-plus-millimeter-) long, red-brown achenes, each with two basal scales. Fruits nudge 0.16- to 0.19-inch (4- to 5-millimeter) lemmas and paleae within 0.15- to 0.32-inch (3.8- to 8-millimeter) by 0.032- to 0.059-inch (0.8- to 1.5-millimeter) glumes.

Archaeological sites 4,400 to 8,200 years old offer charred and uncharred remains from prehistoric peoples' boiling, cooking, grinding, parching, roasting carbohydrate-, iron-, protein-, thiamin-rich, low-fat seeds.

Camps, caves or rockshelters in the Carolinas, Illinois, Kentucky, Massachusetts or Tennessee preserve carbonized seeds, charred achenes or uncarbonized bundles of uncharred flowers, fruits and stems.

Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas and Virginia additionally quicken maygrass-growing nowadays. Fibrous-rooted, modern North American maygrass gardens respectively recycle seeds and shoots as bird feed and as blade-, bract-, spikelet-studded stems for cut and dried flower arrangements.

Erin Weeks, writer for The Raptor Lab, suggests non-native maize as supplanting native "nutritious, tiny and labor-intensive" erect knotweed, goosefoot, little barley, marshelder and maygrass grains. North American maygrass gardens treasure the past and the present through contemporary cut and dried flower arrangements and modern and prehistoric drink, food and herbal recipes.

native distribution of maygrass (Phalaris caroliniana) in the United States: USDA PLANTS Database, Public Domain, via USDA NRCS (Natural Resources Conservation Service) PLANTS Database

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

maygrass (Phalaris caroliniana): Robert H. Mohlenbrock/USDA NRCS Wetland Science Institute (WSI), Public Domain, via USDA NRCS (Natural Resources Conservation Service) PLANTS Database @ https://plants.usda.gov/java/largeImage?imageID=phca6_1v.jpg

native distribution of maygrass (Phalaris caroliniana) in the United States: USDA PLANTS Database, Public Domain, via USDA NRCS (Natural Resources Conservation Service) PLANTS Database @ https://plants.usda.gov/core/profile?symbol=Phca6

For further information:

Crites, Gary D.; and Terry, R. Dale. January 184. "Nutritive Value of Maygrass, Phalaris caroliniana." Economic Botany 38(1): 114-120.
Available @ https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF02904421

Parker, Kittie F.; and Hamilton, Lucretia B. 1972. An Illustrated Guide to Arizona Weeds. Tucson AZ: University of Arizona Press.
Available via Google Books @ https://books.google.com/books?id=a_Dn-BhXwOMC&pg=PA60&lpg=PA60&dq=color+of+phalaris+caroliniana+flower&source=bl&ots=Qar131CzP8&sig=uRZhrLmnMuyF_f-_enYIbr1j2L0&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjqu7bBtILVAhVJ0WMKHbGzCRAQ6AEIXzAN#v=onepage&q=color%20of%20phalaris%20caroliniana%20flower&f=false

"Phalaris caroliniana Walter - Carolina canarygrass." United States Department of Agriculture > Natural Resources Conservation Service > Plant Profile.
Available @ https://plants.usda.gov/core/profile?symbol=PHCA6

Walters, Thomas. 1788. "33. Phalaris caroliniana." Page 74. In Flora Caroliniana. London, England: J. Fraser.
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/1000114

Weakley, Alan S.; Ludwig, J. Christopher; and Townsend, John F. 2012. Flora of Virginia. Edited by Bland Crowder. Fort Worth TX: BRIT Press, Botanical Research Institute of Texas.

Weeks, Erin. 25 July 2013. "North America's Lost Domesticates." The Raptor Lab > Dixicology.
Available @ https://theraptorlab.wordpress.com/2013/07/25/food-week-the-lost-domesticates/