Clouds of ‘hairy panic’ invade

Tumbleweed inundates Australian town

You know that feeling when you wake up in the morning to find a mess of tumbleweed as tall as a grown man blocking your front door?

No? Well, t rust Jason Perna, it’s the worst.

“Walked out the front door this morning to find a good six- metre spread of tumbleweed across the front of the house — again,” he told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. Thursday. “It makes it difficult to get the car out in the morning — if you can find it.”

Perna’s t own of Wangaratta, southeast Australia, has been deluged by tumbleweed this week. Residents believe the piles of wispy weed are coming from an unkempt paddock on a nearby farm, where Panicum effusum, a type of long, tufted grass, has been growing unchecked.

Panicum effusum, you might be tickled to know, means “hairy panic.”

But Perna is not one for hysteria. Like many of his neighbours, he approaches the tumbleweed takeover of his town with a mixture of resignation and bemusement.

“It’s a First World problem. We don’t put it on the scale of any of the famine or poverty going on in the world,” he said. “I’m sure farmers have dealt with this for years. It’s just nice that people can know about it, understand it and sympathize with it.”

Plus, this might be an opportunity to put Wangaratta on the map. Perhaps the town could become a mecca for goat owners, or a hub of scarecrow production.

“We are looking at ways to capitalize on this stuff,” Perna said.

In photos, the tufts of hairy panic look delicate, practically diaphanous — gossamer strands of yellowgold grass that settle in clouds around buildings and against fences.

But up close, the stuff is just a nuisance.

The hairy panic comes around every year — it’s endemic to this part of Australia — but this summer has been particularly bad, 7 News reported, because the conditions have been so dry.

The weed doesn’t pose a fire risk, according to reports, and veterinary surgeon Richard Evans told the BBC it isn’t toxic to animals once it’s dried out.

“It ’s not going to kill people’s dogs and cats,” he said. “It just makes a hell of a mess.”

IT MAKES IT DIFFICULT TO GET THE CAR OUT IN THE MORNING — IF YOU CAN FIND IT.

CHANNEL 7 / AFP / GETTY IMAGES This season has seen an unusual amount of hairy panic — known scientifically as Panicum effusum — with hundreds of thousands of the fuzzy, yellowish plants swamping the town of Wangaratta, Australia.