Briza maxima Seeds | Greater Quaking Grass
LATIN NAME: Briza maxima
COMMON NAME: Greater Quaking Grass
Plant Profile
Greater quaking grass is an annual grass grown for its flower heads, which hang from wiry stems and tremble in the slightest air. Plants are 40-60 cm tall, with flat green leaves and loose panicles of oval spikelets, each one rounded and purplish-green, drying to a pale straw colour.
The movement is the whole point. A group of them in a border shifts and shimmers even when everything around it is still, and the sound of the dry heads in wind is audible from a few metres away. In a vase they keep that movement, which is why they are a florist’s staple.
Briza maxima comes from the Mediterranean, where it grows in dry grassland and open scrub. It is a fast annual, flowering within three months of sowing, and it self-sows so readily that in some warm gardens it becomes a permanent resident rather than a sown crop.
Science & Biotechnology
The spikelet is a compressed raceme, and the trembling comes from the way each one is attached: a thin pedicel joins it to the stem at a shallow angle, so any air movement swings it. That is a seed-dispersal mechanism as much as an ornament, since a shaken head releases its seed further from the parent plant.
Briza belongs to the grass family’s Pooideae subfamily, and it is one of the few ornamental grasses that is a true annual rather than a perennial. That habit is why the plant flowers so quickly and why it dies so completely at the end of the season.
The seed is a caryopsis, a dry fruit with the seed coat fused to the ovary wall, which is the standard grass seed. Fresh seed germinates in a week to ten days at 15-18°C, and it needs light, so surface sowing is essential.
Uses & Benefits
Quaking grass is a dried-flower and cut-flower plant. Cut the stems when the spikelets are fully formed but still green, hang them in bunches in a dark airy place, and they will hold their shape for years. In fresh arrangements they add movement that no other annual provides.
In the garden it works as a filler at the front of a border, in a gravel garden, or in a meadow mix, where its self-sowing is welcome. The seed heads feed small birds in autumn. Commercially the plant is grown for the dried-flower trade, and it is one of the most widely sold dried grasses in Europe.
Growing from Seed
Sow on the surface from March to May or in September, since the seed needs light. Germination takes seven to fourteen days at 15-18°C. Direct sowing is easiest, because the seedlings resent disturbance and the plant establishes fast.
Thin to 15 cm apart in full sun and any well-drained soil. Water until established, then leave it: the plant is drought tolerant and flops in rich ground. Cut the heads for drying before they turn fully brown, and leave a few to self-sow if you want it to return. In a wet summer the stems may need a light support.
Our Take
A grass that earns its place by moving rather than by size, and one that will come back every year without being asked.
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