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Description of Pendant Grass

Travel to the high latitudes, and one of the dominant grasses growing in the wet soils on the tundra is pendant grass (Arctophila fulva), also called Arctic marsh grass. Pendant grass grows where the soil is damp and mushy or along stream banks where ice and snow fully melt during the brief boreal summers. Pendant grass is a circumboreal plant species -- native to the lands encircling the North Pole. It grows naturally across northern Siberia, northern Europe and northern North America.

  1. Size

    • Pendant grass's size varies based on the conditions where it grows. In the coldest areas with a short, chilly and windy summer, the grass grows no taller than 6 inches. However, in slightly warmer or sheltered pockets across the tundra or farther south from the Arctic Circle, pendant grass can grow up to 3 or 4 feet tall in summer.

    Rooting Features

    • A perennial grass, pendant grass grows from rhizomes that develop in mucky surface soil either oriented horizontally or vertically. In colder climates or in denser soils, the roots are shorter and usually grow horizontally. The rhizome is elongated and slender, often branching and producing pale yellow roots at nodes. The lowermost stem, where it attaches to the rhizome, is covered by a papery beige sheath.

    Foliage

    • Once summer arrives on the tundra and the soil surface melts, the pendant grass's white to rosy pink roots sprout erect, somewhat succulent stems. Leaves at the bottom of stems are much shorter and are much longer higher on the stems. Leaves also develop in two distinct ranks or planes on the stem. A leaf blade ranges from 2 to 8 inches long and 1/8 inch wide. The green leaf blade is folded when first emerging, and then opens and spreads flat with a prominent midrib. Winter cold kills leaves and stems back to the ground.

    Flowering and Fruiting

    • The loose, slightly drooping inflorescence of pendant grass appears only at stem tips among leaves. The thin, three to six florets occur in the thin spikelet branches on the inflorescence. After pollination by wind, a floret produces a dry, nonsplitting seed that drops to the ground. In the coldest areas along the Arctic Ocean, flowering may not occur every year.

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