This Chinese Silver-grass or Eulalia is native to much of northeast Asia. It is sometimes referred to as being "Japanese" and it is also native there, but the scientific species name of "sinensis" refers to being from China. There is a large number of cultivars of this species offered at most any conventional garden center or nursery in much of the USA. I first discovered several cultivars in the early 1990's and planted some on the grounds of the hospital where I worked as a groundsman in Illinois. They were flashy ornamental grasses with large grass flowerheads that could be pinkinsh or silver in color and some had variegated or spotted leaf blades. The first cultivars were generally tall of about 5 to 7 feet high. Many newer cultivars are similar but shorter of 2 to 4 feet high. They looked good for some years, but after about 5 to 10 years often would get too big and fall over and the middle of the clump would die out. Two bad traits that could happen was that the leaf blades could be sharp and one could get some cuts handling them. The large cultivars produced a powerful, large, tough root system, so that when the middle of the clump dies out after 5 to 15 years sometime and/or when the clump gets too big and starts to fall over a lot, it is difficult to dig them up, divide, and reset them. I had to use a hacksaw to cut some into pieces to reset the plants. However, what is really bad about Chinese Silvergrass or Eulalia is that is highly invasive. I've been seeing more and more escaping cultivation and growing wild in fields and meadows in the Mid-Atlantic. There is a big meadow in Chesterbrook, PA, where I first saw invasion of Miscanthus from some plants planted at the end of a backyard next to the field about 2008. Since then, I've seen various other fields around also being invaded. The wild plants don't blend well with native or mixed European-American native meadow. I kill them out in nature when I volunteer to remove invasive plants in forest and land preserves.

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