Autumn Grasses

Willa Cather wrote of fall afternoons in “My Ántonia”: “As far as we could see, the miles of copper-red grass were drenched in sunlight... the whole prairie was like the bush that burned with fire and was not consumed.” Native grasses that become particularly colorful include big bluestem which turns a reddish-purple (seen in the picture); indiangrass, which produces a golden plume; switchgrass, which becomes a reddish-purple; lovegrass, which turns into a soft mound of brilliant purple; and sand lovegrass, which turns gold (both lovegrasses are popular in dried arrangements).