Southern Cultures

Abstract:

This article profiles the native bluestem grass broomsedge (Andropogon virginicus) and the role it has played in the history of the U.S. South. It describes how nineteenth-century agricultural reformers, early twentieth-century novelists, and late twentieth-century ecologists studied and used the grass as an indicator of the South's prospects for agricultural, economic, and cultural success. The article concludes by discussing what broomsedge might mean for the South's twenty-first-century future.