Sorghastrum nutans was one of the three most common grasses of the tallgrass prairie. Its range spanned the U.S. from the Atlantic to the Rocky Mountains. It has been recorded in almost every county across that range. And because prairies and meadows were plowed, most people don't know it.
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| Sorghastrum nutans, Indiangrass, yellow prairie grass |
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| Sorghastrum nutans in a tallgrass prairie |
The genus Sorghastrum has five species in North America, of which S. nutans is by far the most widespread.
The name Sorghastrum is a variant on Sorghum, which it resembles and is related to within the grasses.
Milo, grain sorghum, Sorghum bicolor, is a common crop from Kansas to Texas and the relationship is easy to see (link). The species epithet, nutans, means nodding, drooping, or swaying.
This plant has been called Indiangrass--or Indian grass--for centuries. I can't document that, really, but it was collected in the early 1700s and named by Linnaeus in Sweden in 1753. Linnaeus called it Andropogon nutans, George V. Nash made it Sorghastrum nutans in 1901. Linneaus was told it was from Virginia and Jamaica (the latter is now a different species, I believe). Indiangrass has been almost uniformly its common name.
Lack of alternate common names is currently a problem. Indigenous People have objected to the term Indian, a name given them by colonists and, meaning "of India" an inaccurate name from the beginning (from Columbus). Botanists, seeking to not perpetuate slurs or stereotypes in plant names, looked for an alternate name and came up with "yellow prairie grass." I think that is a terrible name for four reasons, listed below. If we need an alternate common name, lets find a better one.
First, yellow prairie grass is vague. Lots of grasses in the prairie are yellow and yellowish. Sorghastrum is only one of many yellowish grasses.
Second, grasses are rarely one color all the time. I worked 20 years with big bluestem, pointing it out to people, and then explaining that it is rarely blue. Sorghastrum is the same: the flowers and seed head can be yellow, but also tan or brown, the leaves a light or grayish green.
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| Sorghastrum nutans seed heads in fall |
Third, when Mary Meyer proposed yellow prairie grasss, she explained it as being from the Lakota name, pȟeží šašá íŋkpa žiží. But pȟeží šašá íŋkpa žiží is actually translation is given as "red grass with a fluffy, light-colored end," not yellow grass.
More serious to me is that every tribe from the Atlantic to the Rockies had a name for Sorghastrum nutans in their own language. A quick search online found:
Sorghastrum nutans in Omaha/Ponca: peźi śma roughly "thick grass" or "dense grass."
The Muscogee word for Sorgastrum nutans was pvske vlke, pvske translates generally to "grass," and vlke makes it collective or plural.
The Pawnee called it rakis meaning "wood," "stick," or "broom," and used it as a broom.
The Cherokee called Sorghastrum nutans selagwû'tsĭ usdí-ga. Selagwû'tsĭ was a "fodder grass", a tall, bunching prairie or meadow grass, and usdí-ga translates to "small," to differentiate it from other grasses.
There have to be many more.
*The names I provided above are highly suspect: they are from a Google search using AI and none of the references AI gave corraborated the names. I quote them to say "many tribes, many names for a common grass." Corrections welcome*
Why translate one of those into an English common name and not another?
Fourth, why translate the common name into English at all? We can say Massachusetts, Mississippi and Saskatoon, so we can learn multi-sylllable indigenous names. In fact, squash, camas, and pucoon are plant common names derived from the Indigenous name of the plant.
But I have no answer to which tribe's name to choose.
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| Sorghastrum nutans flowering The bright yellow at the bottom of the flower head are the anthers, putting pollen into the air |
Finally, I offer a bland solution: The botanists of history had common names in every European language, so they created scientific names in nobody's language (Latin) for international communication. I think we can do that here: call this plant sorghastrum. In much of its range it is the only species in the genus, so the name sorghastrum is clear. In the southeast, call it nodding sorghastrum or, my favorite, swaying sorghastrum, to separate it from its relatives. That is what I'm going to do for the rest of this post.
Mind you, nobody offers much of an explanation as to why this grass was called Indiangrass. If it is meant as a compliment, then perhaps we should say Powhatangrass, reflecting my guess of the tribe colonists were dealing with when they discovered sorghastrum. Or Cherokeegrass. Or Lakotagrass. These are names that connect us to Indigenous use and knowledge.
A handful of ethnobotanical uses have been reported for sorghastrum. It is an excellent forage grass and was certainly valued when putting horses out to graze, by tribes all across the continent. That is a simple use, but was very important. Sorghastrum, and probably other stiff prairie grasses, was used as a broom by the Pawnee. Unnamed tribes used it to weave baskets and mats. Dyed stems of sorghastrum were threaded through beads, bark, or quills as decoration, again, tribe not given.
This was a common and well-known plant. It is still highly regarded as a forage grass and hay plant. In unplowed tallgrass prairies it was one of the most common grasses, so easy for settlers and cattlemen to find. Its abundance in unplowed prairies is higher in the southern plains and in moister areas than in the northern plains. In the central plains usually its seems scattered throughout the prairie, with a flowering stalk here and there, but some years its flower stalks will dominate so the whole prairie seems to be sorghastrum. Because cattle like it so well, its abundance declines with heavy grazing.
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| Sorghastrum nutans in a tallgrass prairie |
It has deep roots, going down 8-10' below the 6' flowering plant (here's an image link). Obviously that lets it find water deep in the soil. That dense mass of roots stabilizes the soil. It also stores carbon and nutrients in the soil as roots grow and die, building soil quality and helping clean the excess carbon dioxide out of the air.
It is a warm-season grass. The plants emerge from the soil in late spring, grow well on hot sumer days, and are quite tolerant of very hot conditions. Flowering is in summer/late summer, July to September, depending on where you are. The anthers, hanging out to put the pollen into the wind, are a bright yellow. Stigmas are white. (see photo link)
The seeds are in single-seeded fruits (caryopses) covered with hairs that give them a whitish sheen (photo link). The flowerstalks are tall--easily to six feet--and the hairs let the caryopses tangle onto passers-by. I had a fuzzy red sweater I loved, but only wore it out into the prairie once: the sorghastrum seeds were lightly tangled, but I still had to pull them off one at a time before I could wear the sweater again. The hairy seeds seem odd...until you think of bison on the prairie. Those tall animals provide several kinds of hair suitable for a sorghastrum caryopsis to hitch a ride. Historically bison moved pretty constantly so the caryopses might drop off nearby, or be shed with the winter coat, hundreds of miles from their origin.
Sorghastrum is the host plant of the pepper and salt skipper (Amblyscirtes hegon, Hesperidae) link and probably several other "grass skippers." It hosts Neonympha areolata (Nymphalidae link). The larvae of Dargida (Faronta) albilinea and Dargida (Faronta) diffusa of the Noctuidae feed on it; these are army worms, generalists which eat many grasses and can be pests (link). That is just a start: it is a preferred food of several grasshoppers, the slant-faced grasshoppers Admirable Grasshopper (Syrbula admirabilis) (link) and Velvet-striped Grasshopper (Eritettix simplex) (link) and the Little Pasture Grasshopper (Melanoplus confusus) (link). Its seeds are sometimes eaten by the caterpillars of the sorghum webworm moth, Nola cereella (Nolidae). And spit bugs, spittle bugs, leaf hoppers, and other common insects feed on it. Like most common native grasses, it feeds a variety of insects. No doubt there are more than I quickly found.
The insects attract their predators, for example spiders, small birds, mice. Depending on the structure of the prairie, all of these animals can be found living in, on, or under sorghastrum. Small birds and mice also feed directly on sorghastrum seeds.
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| Sorghastrum nutans in a tallgrass prairie |
Today, you find it for sale in stores selling grasses for landscaping. A single plant will form a modest-sized clump. Leaves and flower heads come in a variety of shades. The seed head stays on to create winter interest.
Sorgastrum is a pretty plant, a good forage grass and an important plant in grassland ecosystems. Below is how I like to think of it: golden flower heads in a sea of big bluestem (the reddish grass).
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Comments and corrections welcome.
Common names I saw on one site but not more: he sites suggested include Indian reed, bushy bluestem, woodgrass, wild oatgrass...
References
Brakie, M. 2017. Plant Guide for Indiangrass (Sorghastrum nutans). USDA-Natural Resources Conservation Service, East Texas Plant Materials Center. Nacogdoches, TX 75964. link Accessed 7/24/26
Clark, L. no date given. Grasses of Iowa. Indiangrass (woodgrass, bushy bluestem, wild oatgrass) Sorghastrum nutans (L.) Nash link Accessed 7/24/26
Meyer, M. H. 2021. What's in a Name? Grasstalk. Nov. 22, 2021 link Accessed 7/24/26
Meyer, M. H. 2021. Yellow Prairie Grass. October 11, 2021. link Accessed 7/25/26
Natural History Museum. 2026. Query on the Natural History Museum Data Portal (data.nhm.ac.uk) [lepidoptera with host ] Sorghastrum nutans. Natural History Museum. https://doi.org/doi link Accessed 7/24/26
Weaver, J. E. 1954. North American Prairie. Johnsen Publishing Company. Lincoln, Nebraska.
NoCo Notables, Stories of Common Plants of the Colorado Front Range, Plants have cool stories, about their interactions with other plants and animals and with humans. Go beyond just having a name for the plant, learn more about it. Available from Amazon link or from me.
And
Look Twice, containing stories of plants from the unique environments found in western Nebraska and eastern Colorado, available from Amazon link or from me.
New book coming later this year: Plants You Meet Everywhere. The stories of really cosmopolitan plants such as marigolds, bougainvillea and cheatgrass.
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