West indian foxtail grass

Andropogon bicornis, often called West Indian foxtail grass or barba-de-bode, is a robust perennial bunchgrass in the Poaceae family, native to the Neotropics from southern Mexico and the Caribbean through Central America to much of tropical South America. It forms dense tussocks 1 to 2 metres tall with numerous erect, slender, hollow culms arising from a short, knotty rootstock. The leaves are mostly basal and narrow, linear, flat or folded, 30 to 60 cm long, rough to the touch and pale to bluish-green. The inflorescence is highly characteristic: a large fan-shaped or feather-duster-like cluster of paired racemes borne on slender peduncles at the top of the culm, conspicuously silky-white to silvery when mature owing to long hairs on the rachis and spikelets. Flowering and fruiting occur mainly in the dry season. The spikelets are paired, one sessile and fertile, the other pedicellate and reduced, in typical Andropogon fashion. It is abundant in disturbed pastures, savannas, roadsides and old fields.