Going to Disney World is always a lot of fun, although the size of the crowds sometimes dampens even the most enthusiastic Mickey Mouse fanatic.
The Hollywood Studios theme park is a favorite of ours. The Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge area of that park is an amazing immersive experience, one that I would highly recommend, and Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance is probably the best ride in Disney World. Another area that we like visiting is Toy Story Land, where the Toy Story Mania ride is another one of our favorites.
But every time I go to Hollywood studios there is one other attraction that I am eager to see once again. The entire Disney World is a haven for an amazingly large number of bamboos, but scattered in singles and clumps in Toy Story Land is an elegant and large grass species that resembles a smaller bamboo, but is in fact one of the Panicoideae.
Thysanolaena latifolia is not native to the area, but it has been used at times in Florida and other warmer climes as an ornamental due to its attractive nature.
I first encountered this species in the Harry P. Leu botanical garden, where the broad leaves and broom-like inflorescence immediately garnered my attention. It is a native of South and Southeast Asia, and its common names include Tiger grass, Nepalese broom grass, broom grass, and broom stick. The reference to brooms is because in some areas, the broom-like inflorescence are used for cleaning.
This common use of the species is important in its native communities because the inflorescence can be collected and sold as brooms. In addition, the plant itself can be used for erosion control and as a way to inhibit weeds.
Finally, new research has touted it for a sustainable source of bioethanol. It is a weedy plant in some parts of the world, and it produces large amounts of biomass of up to 10.8 kg/year that can be used to generate fuel (Wongleang et al, 2024).
T. latifolia is a lover of warmer temperatures, and the cold spell that hit Central Florida in early 2026 severely affected this grass. They were trimmed in the aftermath of this event that also killed many mature palm trees, and I wondered whether some would survive.
But several months later, the T. latifolia in Toy Story Land had grown significantly. When we visited last week, the somewhat ugly-looking trimmed grasses had progressed and now had the look of matured specimens.
Since the species is a long lived perennial, dense clumps have been known to live for decades and more, and long time visitors to Disney World who come back here to Hollywood Studios 20 years in the future will probably still encounter the same grasses thriving under the shadows of the the Slinky Dog Dash ride.
Whether or not they would actually notice the specimens is another question. To most of the thousands of people that day in Disney World, the plants around them were just background props to the frantic ebb and flow of the crowd, but we all know what the plants themselves think of us, eh?
Literature Cited
Wongleang, S., Premjet, D., & Premjet, S. (2024). Investigating the Potential of Grass Biomass (Thysanolaena latifolia) as an Alternative Feedstock for Sugar Platforms and Bioethanol Production. Energies, 17(16), 4017. https://doi.org/10.3390/en17164017
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