Anatherum glomeratum (Bushy Bluestem)

Native from the eastern United States into northeastern Mexico, and through parts of the Caribbean and northern tropical America, this perennial grass forms dense upright clumps. Flowering stems rise about 2 to 6 feet in moist open ground, including wet savannas, bogs, pond margins and roadside swales. Its closely packed flower clusters become conspicuously fluffy with long pale hairs. Fertile spikelets have slender awns, and the foliage turns coppery as the season advances. Photographed in Colombia.