Keyed Out #073 — Hakonechloa macra

Question 1

The stems are rounded and swollen at every joint, the blades ride in two opposite ranks, and each leaf {sheath} is split open down one side rather than closing into a tube.

Accepted Answer

grass family

Question 2

Its flowers carry no petals and no ring of {tepal}s: each sits between two dry {bract}s in a little cluster that begins with a pair of empty ones, and the fruit is a single dry grain welded to its own wall.

Accepted Answer

Poaceae

Question 3

Every blade in the low, dense mound sweeps the same way, so the whole clump pours downhill like falling water instead of standing up as a stiff vase or an erect tuft.

Accepted Answer

Hakonechloa

Question 4

It creeps only by short, stout underground stems, gaining a little each season, so a planting thickens into a tidy patch instead of running away through the bed.

Accepted Answer

Hakonechloa

Question 5

The flowering sprays are slight, few-flowered, greenish-tan and nodding, barely clearing the blades and easy to overlook, not bold heads carried well clear of the foliage.

Accepted Answer

Hakonechloa macra

Question 6

It gives up entirely for winter, colouring through gold, copper and pink in autumn and then dying down to dead straw with no living blade left by midwinter, rather than holding green foliage through the cold.

Accepted Answer

Hakonechloa macra