Another Panic-ed Name Change

A splendid native ornamental grass that is virtually unknown in both gardens and Google, is the East Coast (Rhode Island south to Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula) coastal native, Panicum amarulum or dune switchgrass. It was named in 1900 from specimens in Virginia Beach, and for years lived a free and independent life, until someone decided that it should be lumped together with the slightly better known and fewer-lettered Panicum amarum. While both species are coastal sand dune natives, they are dramatically different, so it’s mind boggling to anyone who has grown both plants, that they were thought to be the same.

Panicum amarum clumps splay open up with flowering, creating a rather unsightly mass of foliage. Panicum amarulum forms a dense, more erect clump that’s not prone to the same splaying. The plumes of Panicum amarum are quite open, although not quite as much as Panicum virgatum, while the plumes of Panicum amarulum are fused tightly together, more like the plumes of a sorghastrum. For us, peak flowering of Panicum amarulum starts in mid-September. Both species share wonderful powder blue foliage that gardeners prize. Being a sand dune plant, it obviously has great salt tolerance. Our collection, which we named Panicum ‘Marston Blue’, is from Richmond County, NC. It’s interesting to note that in 1948, Dr. Hugo Blomquist visited the area, and wondered if it might have been intentionally planted here, since it was five counties away from the other closest NC population, perhaps not realizing is was native just 30 miles away, across the SC border. Regardless, it’s our hope to bring this long-overlooked great native into commerce for home gardens. We really don’t know much about winter hardiness, but it should be fine from Zone 6b-10b, at least.