The Original Mystery Plant
Dr. John Nelson

Photo by Linda Lee

The Mystery Plant is a native grass. A bunch- grass, to be specific, as it forms stout clumps not spreading by runners or rhizomes.

This species is common in a wide variety of forest settings throughout the Southeastern U.S. It's usually found in thinly wooded, not too shady, and relatively dry sites. It generally avoids wet soils.

The Mystery Plant is especially prevalent on roadsides, rocky outcrops, and open fields that have been abandoned. It likes poor soil and makes an excellent subject for revegetation of old industrial sites.

This species can be an important food source for livestock and remains similarly valuable for various wildlife species. It's also an important ground- cover that provides hiding places for small mammals and nesting sites for birds, especially quail.

In large numbers, the Mystery Plant allows fires to burn, ultimately clearing brush and maintaining open habitats for a variety of plant and animal species.

Like all grasses, the Mystery Plant produces stems or culms, round in cross- section that are ensheathed by the bases of elongated leaves. All grasses produce very tiny, reduced flowers. The basic flowering unit of a grass is a spikelet, which consists of at least one flower and the associated little bracts, hairs, bristles, and spines.. Each flower that contains a functioning ovary can produce a grain.

The Mystery Plant has a single grass inflorescence consisting of a pair of racemes, and each pair forms a fork. Each raceme will bear a number of tiny spikelets, arranged in pairs, and equipped with a lot of slender, silky hairs, which gives it the bearded or fluffy look.

The Mystery Plant is historically essential for feeding much of humanity. Fuels, paper, fermented beverages, building materials, sod, turf, and ornamental plants derive from the Mystery Plant.