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The Dangers of Foxtails and Your Pet

The Dangers of Foxtails and Your Pet

Foxtails -A foxtail is a spikelet or spikelet cluster of a grass, that serves to disperse its foxtails (grass awns) seeds as a unit. Thus the foxtail is a type of diaspore or “plant dispersal unit”. Some grasses that produce a foxtail are themselves called “foxtail“, also “spear grass”. – wikipedia

foxtails grass awnThese “foxtail like” weed clusters have barbs that when disturbed, fall and work their way into the ground making it hard for the cluster to come loose from the dirt. The outside part of the cluster also harbors bacteria composed of enzymes that break down cellular matter.  [Read more…]