Dr. Phyto

Chinese silver grass

Miscanthus sinensis

Diseases & pests on this plant

• Miscanthus rust (ornamental grass rust)Puccinia miscanthidii

  Bright orange to rusty-brown powdery pustules appear in rows along the leaves of ornamental grasses such as Miscanthus and fountain grass; rubbing a leaf leaves an orange stain on your fingers. Heavily rusted leaves yellow, dry from the tips and look tatty by late summer, and severe attacks weaken and thin the clump. Damp, mild, crowded conditions favour it.

• Miscanthus blightStagonospora sp.

  On ornamental Miscanthus (and related grasses), reddish-brown spots and oval streaks develop on the leaf blades and sheaths, mostly on older leaves first. The spots enlarge and run together so leaf margins and tips turn brown and die back, and in bad years the whole clump can look scorched. Young, soft plants can be killed outright. The blight worsens in warm, wet, late-summer weather.

• sheath blightRhizoctonia solani
• Leaf spot and common root rotBipolaris sorokiniana

  Small dark brown to black leaf spots, often with a yellow halo, that enlarge and merge to blight whole leaves in warm, humid weather; on close-mown turf this becomes a general thinning and bronzing. Below ground the same fungus causes a brown rot of roots, crowns and stem bases, so plants are easily pulled up and the turf melts out in diffuse, irregular brown areas. Most damaging in warm summer spells on stressed, thatchy lawns.