Tripsacum dactyloides, “Eastern Gamma Grass”
Poaceae

A premier native forage species for domesticated ruminants, this warm season grass also has maize-like edible seeds. Until the government told them they couldn’t slaughter their own animals onsite (and it is pretty onerous to have to load bison in a truck and take them anywhere, they’re huge and wild), there was an exemplary silvopasture in northern Missouri using bison, Tripsicum and hardy pecan (Carya illinoiensis).

Last I heard, the Land Institute is trying to cross T. dactyloides with other species to make a new perennial crop. Thanks Neal Humke for the tip. In the words of the inimitable Eric Toensmeier, “Corn (Zea mays) has perennial relatives and can also be crossed with hardy perennials including Eastern gammagrass (Tripsacum dactyloides). Work at the Land Institute has made substantial progress towards developing perennial corn. Land Institute breeders report that with sufficient funding a perennial corn could be ready for field tests in as little as ten years. One challenge is that the perennial rhizomes that overwinter the plants are not cold hardy, so breeding is focused on deeper rhizomes that survive below the frost line. Of course this consideration is not important in the tropics where millions of people rely on corn as a staple.”

Eastern gamma smells like cucumber if you break the base and has beard coming of sides of joints.

Perennial, with short stout rhizomes, forming clumps.

Stems 70-250 cm, base of culms flattened.

Leaf sheaths rounded to keeled on back, glabrous, ligule is a short membrane with a fringed margin. Leaf  blades 10-70 cm long x 7-20 cm wide, glabrous or somewhat hairy at base, midvein white and noticeably thickened, margins saw-toothed.

Inflorescences consisted of 1-4 dense, spike-like racemes. Staminate and pistillate spikelets in the same inflorescence, staminate ones toward tip and pistillate ones toward base. Glumes hardened and bony, somewhat resembling corn kernels. Blooms early-mid summer.

In Missouri, found in upland prairies, glades, savannas, less commonly in woodlands, roadsides, fields.

(Hybrid MOFEP/National Park Fire Ecology Manual)