Grass Flowers

I've been practicing my macro shots trying to photograph some grass flowers.  They only bloom briefly, and they never stand still, as the slightest breeze blows them back and forth.  It's a challenge to get clear pictures, even with a tripod!  And unfortunately I have had no luck learning to identify grass species, so these are all anonymous!

Grass flowers are wind-pollinated, and so specialized that an entire separate vocabulary is used to describe them.  Gone are things like the petals, replaced with bracts and awns.  But they still have stamens (the long yellow pieces here), and stigmas (the white feathery parts).  The stamens release the pollen, the stigmas try to catch it.  You can see the green bracts, and the sharp-pointed awns that extend from them in the second picture.

These two grasses were nearly 6 feet high, and at first I thought they were an ornamental grass in our garden.  Turns out they were just invading grasses.

 Both the entire plant, and the individual stamens in this picture were moving with the breeze.

A similar bunch of stamens, but a different species of grass.

Not sure what grass this is, but it shows the stamens (yellow) and the stigmas (white) really clearly.  The whole thing is about 1" long, just one small piece of a grass seedhead.

Both the stamens and the bracts are obvious with this species.  I don't know what draws me to grasses, but some year I'll spent some time and try to learn them, and get better pictures.

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