False Oat-grass - Arrhenatherum elatius

Loosely tufted grass 50 to 150 cm tall, with orange yellow roots and dull flat leaves 10 to 40 cm long and 1 to 8 mm wide. Panicle is 10 to 25 cm long, whorled and loosely spreading in flower, but closed up in fruit. Spikelets 7 to 10 mm long the lower floret with a bent awn 10 20 mm long on the back of the lemma, the upper usually awnless.

The panicle is branched but the branches close together after fertilisation giving the appearance of a long, gracefully arched spike. Each spikelet has one awn projecting as long as the spikelet. Spikelets have only two florets, one of which has anthers and a stigma.

Meadows and road verges.

June and July.

Perennial.

Very common throughout Britain.

Very common in Leicestershire and Rutland. In the 1979 Flora survey of Leicestershire it was found in 604 of the 617 tetrads.