Festuca arundinacea Schreb.   =F. elatior var. arundinacea   Poaceae (Grass Family)   Europe   Meadow Fescue   Reed Fescue

                                May Photo

Plant Characteristics:  Perennial, with stout culms, 5-18 dm. long, sheaths smooth; blades flat, mostly 2.5-7 dm. long, 4-8 mm. wide; panicles 1.5-5 dm. long, erect or with nodding summit, subsimple or much branched; spikelets 8-12 mm. long, 4-8 fld., mostly violet-tinged; lemmas 7-10 mm. long, oblong-lanceolate, coriaceous, rarely short awned, usually scarcely evident, less than 1 mm. long.

Habitat:  Occasional in meadows and waste places; Santa Catalina Id.  May-June

Name:  Latin, festuca, a stem, straw; also a straw-like weed growing among barley.  Latin, arundo, a reed.  (Jaeger 27,102).  Festuca, an old Latin name for a weedy grass.  (Hitchcock 57).

General:  Occasional in the study area, occurring in colonies or groups of individual clumps.  Photographed at 23rd Street, along Back Bay Dr. between San Joaquin Hills Dr. and Big Canyon, the Santa Ana Heights Flats and along the lower path between 23rd Street and the Delhi area.  In 1994 and 1995 this grass was also found along the bluff edge in the northerly section of Eastbluff.  The Eastbluff specimen keys to Festuca subulata in Hitchcock, however, John Johnson, after several hours of work has come to the conclusion that it must be F. arundinacea. (my comments).       Widely used as a forage crop and sometimes escapes and becomes a weed in fields and waste places.  (Robbins et al. 80).     More than 100 species of temperate and cool regions, many being important forage grasses.  (Munz, Flora So. Calif. 971).

Text Ref:  Hickman, Ed. 1260; Munz, Flora So. Calif. 972; Robbins et al. 80; Roberts 47.

Photo Ref:  Mar 2-April 1 84 # 14,; May 2 88 # 9,10,11; April 95 # 4; April-May 95 # 24.

Identity: by Walt Wright, Native Plant Society and John Johnson.

First Found:  April 1984.

Computer Ref:  Plant Data 45.

Have plant specimen.

Last edit 11/26/04.  

                      May Photo                                                    May Photo