Word.ws English Dictionary

button grass

button grass noun: 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.

button grass: any of several grasses with round or globular flower heads; especially Gymnoschoenus...
Image: J Brew from near Seattle, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

button grass (uncountable)

  1. (Australia) 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 of button grass

alternative formbuttongrass
alternative formbutton-grass

Origin of button grass

From button + grass.

Questions about button grass

What does button grass mean?
Button grass means 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.
What part of speech is button grass?
Button grass is a noun.

Words near button grass in the dictionary

  1. button days
  2. button ear
  3. button ears
  4. button fish
  5. button fishes
  6. button grass
  7. button hole
  8. button holes
  9. button it
  10. button lift
  11. button lifts

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: button grass (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “button grass.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/button_grass. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.