| Panicum maximum |
| Oh,
for the love of 'p's ! Prata*... Panicum... and... Proliferation
- a word not uncommonly used to describe the 'promotion of'
or 'spreading of', for example, the arts. Proliferation is also a scientific term used in biology to describe 'growth by active cell division'. And would a distinguish hallmark be found in grasses, it would surely be proliferation - the 'meristemic miracle' which allows grass shoots 'to grow and grow' non-stop and to cloth, as it does, the greater part of the earth's terrestrial landscape so prodigously. |
| It
is a propensity for which vegetative growth is astonishingly carried
to the extreme by bamboos and some grass
species such a Panicum maximum (shown right). Here in a rare phenomenon known as prolifery, the reproductive development of an inflorescence is suddenly interrupted and reverted back to vegetative growth. As a result, spikelets are |
 |
| converted to plantlets which then continue to develop vegetatively while remaining attached to the mother plant. Eventually these plantlets would fall to the ground and grow on their own. Prolifery is thus not wholely dis-similar to vivipary. Some experts, however, prefer to describe prolifery as 'false vivipary'. |
This rather rare and random phenomenon also occur in some Brachiaria spp. You should consider yourself very lucky if you see it happening one day !
* Prata - a pastry, of Indian cuisine, made from wheat flour