Esparto, halfah grass, or esparto grass is a fiber produced from two species of perennial grasses of north Africa, Spain and Portugal. It is used for crafts, such as cords, basketry, and espadrilles. Stipa tenacissima and Lygeum spartum are the species used to produce esparto.
Stipa tenacissima (Macrochloa tenacissima) produces the better and stronger esparto. It is endemic to the Mediterranean region (growing in Portugal, Spain, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Egypt). Another name in Spanish for the plant is "atocha", a pre-Roman word. "Esparto" or σπάρτο in Greek may refer to any woven products of sedge or broom, including cords and ropes.[1] This species grows forming a steppic landscape – esparto grasslands – which covers large parts of Spain and Algeria.
- ^ Definitions for σπαρτίον and σπάρτον Archived 2016-05-06 at the Wayback Machine Henry George Liddell; Robert Scott [1940], A Greek-English Lexicon; Machine readable text (Trustees of Tufts University, Oxford)