Dictionary

button grass en · NOUN

Etymology

From button + grass.

Meanings

1. (Australia, uncountable) Any of several grasses with round or globular flower heads; especially Gymnoschoenus sphaerocephalus, a tussock-forming sedge especially of western Tasmania, forming distinct plains; and Dactyloctenium radulans, an annual grass of mainland Australia.
   • [T]he ceiling swelled in waves like an ocean, like a buttongrass plain, like the pocked earth stripped of its trees […]. 1997, Richard Flanagan, chapter 75, in The Sound of One Hand Clapping, New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, pages 377–378:
   • Button-grass plains grew in peaty soil to the water's edge. 2004, Nicholas Shakespeare, In Tasmania, Harvill Press, p. 73

Forms