Armed and ready for dryness

What’s the difference between a hay meadow and dry grassland such as we’ve frequently encountered on this hike? Succulent grass for foraging is present where water and nutrients are abundant. In places where the earth has hardly been cultivated and where water is scarce, only specially adapted plants can survive. The grass with bluish leaves is one of these plants. It is the main component of the Vinschgau dry grassland. This grass is actually two different plants: festuca valesiaca, with its fine, thin and always blue leaves, and festuca rupicola, with somewhat more intense blue-green or green leaves. Both types can be found in abundance in the steppe landscapes of Asia. In Europe they’re only found in the driest of places. Like the majority of grasses found in dry places, the leaves are folded and not open so as to minimise evaporation.