Question
i recently purchased a small indoor tree that happened to catch my eye, but dont know what it is.
its approx. 14 inches tall. trunk is fairly smooth, light bark, approx. 1 inch in diameter.
the top of the tree almost looks like grass. or rather, clumps of grass. i thought this would make it easy to identify, but so far cant seem to.

Answer
Hello Ian,

Try an image search on google or yahoo for "Ponytail palm". If the trunk of your tree is swollen at the base thats a pretty good indicator of ponytail palm(aka Elephants Foot).
If that isn't your plant let me know and ill keep searching.

If you can take a picture of it you can send it to me at [email protected]

Justin