Festuca pratensis Huds.                                                                       =F. elatior                                                                                Poaceae (Grass Family)                                                                                 Europe   Meadow Fescue

                              June Photo 

Plant Characteristics:  Perennial, with stout culms 3-12 dm. long; sheaths smooth; blades flat, mostly 4-6 mm. wide, 1-2 dm. long; panicles erect or with nodding summit, subsimple or much branched, 1-2 dm long, the branches bearing spikelets nearly to the base; spikelets mostly 6-8 fld., 8-12 mm. long; glumes lanceolate, 3 and 4 mm. long, nerves 1 and 3; lemmas oblong-lanceolate, coriaceous, 5-7 mm. long, scarious at apex, rarely short-awned, nerves 5; stamens 3, anthers 2-4.5 mm.; ovary tip glabrous.

Habitat:  Occasional in meadows and waste places as an escape from cultivation. Blooms May-July. (Munz, Flora So. Calif. 973).

Name:  Latin, festuca, ancient name for some grass.   (Munz, Flora So. Calif. 971).  Latin, pratensis, pertaining to or growing in a meadow.  (Jaeger 206).

General:  Rare in the study area with only one clump known, this along the westerly side of the Delhi Channel about 300 feet southerly from the pedestrian bridge that crosses the channel at University Dr.    Karlin Marsh reported the grass in her study of 1990 of Upper Bay plants for the County of Orange.  I was never able to find the plants she described in that study.  (my comments)       Grown for forage.  (Hickman, Ed. 1260).

Text Ref:  Hickman, Ed. 1260; Munz, Flora So. Calif. 973.

Photo Ref:  May-June 00 #22,23,24.

Identity: by R. De Ruff, confirmed by John Johnson.

First Found:  June 2000.

Computer Ref:  Plant Data 522.

Plant specimen donated to UC Riverside in 2004. 

Last edit 8/7/05. 

                                             June Photo