Meet cogongrass, the fire-loving, stabby demon plant invading Alabama.
It doesn’t look like much at first, a dense field of grass with a few willowy white tufts like dandelions sprouting at the top.
The biggest problem with cogongrass is that it tends to crowd out other plants wherever it takes hold, and creates dense mats where nothing else will grow. The plant sends out rhizomes -- those underground stems that sprout new shoots of grass along the way -- that are actually sharp enough to penetrate the roots of other plants, stabbing out the competition underground.
Then, once a good patch is established, those tufts at the top are perfect fuel for wildfires in fall and winter. And, Loewenstein said,than native grass fires because of the dense clumps of dried out cogongrass thatch. Cogongrass fires can kill pine trees and other plants that are typically resistant to wildfires because of the intense heat.
From there, it has spread throughout most of Alabama and Florida, with some reports in Mississippi, Louisiana, Georgia, Texas, Tennessee and the Carolinas. It’s most commonly seen along the sides of highways, where it outgrows many native grasses, but it can spread through partially shaded forests as well.
by wildlife officials in Florida estimated that cogongrass has an economic impact of more than $35 million a year in the Sunshine State, factoring in costs of landowners trying to control or remove cogongrass from their lands and from lost productivity where cogongrass has taken over.
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