Mexican Feather Grass was recently mentioned at a meeting of the San Mateo County Weed Management Advisory Committee.
I’m a member of that committee, but hadn’t thought much about that plant. During the past few weeks I’ve seen about one hundred or more of the lovely but dangerous plants in ornamental Coastside plantings. If you have it in your yard, or around your business please pull it out and throw it in the trash. Do not compost it or put in in with green waste as this will spread the seeds. Please do not buy it, or plant it. I was moved to post this because of my concern for our Coastside, not as a part of any organization.
The California Invasive Plant Council (Cal=IPC http://www.cal-ipc.org/) is aware of this plant and working to halt commercial sales. The following is from the Cal-IPC website.

Nassella tenuissima (Mexican feathergrass) — Widely sold and grown throughout California. Also called Stipa tenuissima or ponytails. Touted as a good drought resistant plant. Australia and New Zealand list it as a serious threat to agriculture. Q-rated by CDFA in 2004; recently proposed to change to C list. Has not yet established in the wild, but is a frequent escape in gardens. Need to keep an eye on it in wildlands and make sure it does not get established, primarily in coastal areas from the Bay Area to southern California.

From http://marianistcenter.blogspot.com/2007/06/nassella-tenuissima.html:

Nassella tenuissima is commonly known as Mexican feather grass. N. tenuissima can be a weed in its native range at sites under high disturbance, such as that caused by overgrazing.

The grass forms indigestible balls in the stomach of stock and, if forced to graze it, the stock may lose weight and die, as the plant has a high fibre content and a low nutritive value.

This grass is an extremely vigorous, invasive plant which crowds out desirable pasture species, reducing stock carrying capacity. It can also crowd out native grasses in coastal or open areas. In Australia, it has the potential to spread through grazing land, replacing grass species currently used to raise cattle with unpalatable tussock habitat. It has the potential to cover 14 million hectares of land in Australia. N. tenuissima has been shown to be invasive in fire-driven or littoral ecosystems and habitats, which has precipitated concern in South Africa that it could threaten native grassland habitats

Note: attached photo is from http://www.country-shadows.org.

All right.  I’ll admit letting this seed around my yard, probably blowing up into my neighbor’s yard - although I asked her about it and she shrugged and says she doesn’t mind if it blows her way and sprouts.

What are similar-looking, native, non-invasive alternatives?  I love the way the feather grass looks late summer in the breeze.  I like touching its soft-bushyness.  But I do know, that like the Pampas Grass (which I also find beautiful in that late summer/early fall splendor), it’s an extremely invasive grass that overwhelms habitats.  Gimme an alternate, if you please.  :)

The Yerba Buena Nursery has a selection of native grasses that can be selected for form and color to match a wide variety of landscaping schemes.

Botanist Toni Corelli has a website with an extensive review of plants on our local biogeographic refuge, Montara Mountain. Look under the family name “Poaceae” and check out which ones are native. http://www.stanford.edu/~corelli/montaramontara.html

Chuck Kozak’s web review of local plants has not had much work on it lately, but it is sometimes a useful quickie reference. Unfortunately, most of the grasses listed are non-native invasives, an aspect Chuck is very good at pointing out.. http://plants.montara.com/

I forgot to return here after reading your reply to say thank you.

Thanks for the tips!

You guys will throw up your hands when you see this July 12, “Fresh Dirt” Sunset Magazine post, (scroll to Example #2):

http://freshdirt.sunset.com/2008/07/heres-why-lands.html

Thanks for the tip. I’ll write Sunset.

Getting back to the subject of alternatives for garden and landscape, here are a couple of additional websites with useful advice:

http://www.bawsca.watersavingplants.com/bawsca.php

http://www.yerbabuenanursery.com