BRIZA media

Nice herbaceous, perennial and evergreen, with a bushy habit, belonging to the Poaceae family. It is wide spread spontaneously in the Euro-Siberian area, from sea level to alpine altitude, where it easily colonizes arid and abandoned meadows, normally growing up to 30 cm tall, which in flowering becomes even 70 cm, and 40-50 cm large maximum. It is equipped with a rich root system; it has narrow and beautiful intense green thin ribbon-like leaves, which constitute dense, truly ornamental tufts. Between late spring and late summer, depending on the area of ​​growth, inflorescences rise on a cushion of ethereal leaves. These, thanks to slender peduncles, support heart-shaped pendulous green tinged with purple spikelets, which turn, when ripe, to a warm golden yellow: they contain the flowers, which generate different seeds, if fertilized. These make a subtle sound with the wind: hence, the popular name of “rattle herb” attributed to this grass.

It prefers sunny or partial shade positions and well-drained soils, even poor and uncultivated ones; it tolerates intense and prolonged frost as well as the presence of brackish winds or long periods of drought. At the vegetative restart in spring, you can intervene by removing both the dried flowering stems and any aged leaves: you can also shorten the entire head every other year to allow for a thicker and more compact development. It is suitable to pot and containers cultivation of any hanging garden. In the open ground in our garden, it enriches rocks or partner other grasses or even, why not, it forms low borders or carpets at the base of shrubs and deciduous trees: its inflorescences, which can also be used to create dried flowers compositions, will always know how to capture our curiosity with their original structure!