Common Bent - Agrostis capillaris
20 to 50 cm tall, tufted with creeping rhizomes but no leafy stolons. Panicle is purplish brown and always spreading, with whorled branches.
Creeping Bent (Agrostis stolonifera) and Black Bent (Agrostis gigantea)
The panicle is branched. Each spikelet contains only one floret usually completely enclosed by its glumes. The inflorescence is very open with widely spaced spikelets which are not awned. The tiller ligule is shorter than wide - i.e. on the non-flowering shoot.
Look at the tiller ligules, not those on a flowering stem. Photograph whole plant in flower and detail of tiller ligules if possible
Drier and more acid grassland.
June to August.
Perennial.
Quite a common grass throughout Britain.
Quite common in Leicestershire and Rutland. In the 1979 Flora survey of Leicestershire it was found in 388 of the 617 tetrads.
Leicestershire & Rutland Map
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UK Map
Species profile
- Common names
- Common Bent
- Species group:
- flowering plant
- Kingdom:
- Plantae
- Order:
- Poales
- Family:
- Poaceae
- Records on NatureSpot:
- 179
- First record:
- 21/09/1998 (Anthony Fletcher)
- Last record:
- 27/06/2025 (Bates, Adam)
Total records by month
% of records within its species group
10km squares with records
The latest images and records displayed below include those awaiting verification checks so we cannot guarantee that every identification is correct. Once accepted, the record displays a green tick.
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Latest images
Latest records
Subanguina graminophila
The nematode Subanguina graminophila causes galls to form on grasses in the Agrostis (Bent) family. The galls take the form of a purplish or reddish swelling, usually near the base of the leaf blade.
Epichloe baconii
Epichloe baconii is a 'choke' fungus gall on Bents (Agrostis species of grass) where the node of the stem becomes encircled by a fungal stroma which is whitish to begin with then bright yellow when mature.















