Southern Research Station

Title: Decline of Sweetgrass Spurs Restoration of Coastal Prairie Habitat (South Carolina)

Author: Burke, Marianne K.; Halfacre, Angela C.; Hart, Zachary

Date: 2003

Source: Ecological Restoration, Volume 21, Number 1, March 2003

Description: A muhly grass, locally known as sweetgrass (Muhlenbergia filipes Curtis; Prinson and Batson 1971), is a culturally valued and historically important component of the coastal prairie ecosystems in the South Atlantic Coast Plain region of the United States. In the 18th century, enslaved Africans began collecting sweetgrass and other native plants to produce coiled seagrass baskets, a traditional African art form that they passed down to their children. Today this art form is an important part of the cultural history of the southeastern coast, where basket sales procide a moajor source of income to the African-American artisans. However, loss of sweetgrass habitat has resulted in scarce and, consequently, expensive raw material (Rosegarten 1987).

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Citation

Burke, Marianne K.; Halfacre, Angela C.; Hart, Zachary  2003.  Decline of Sweetgrass Spurs Restoration of Coastal Prairie Habitat (South Carolina).   Ecological Restoration, Volume 21, Number 1, March 2003