Wavy Hair-grass - Avenella flexuosa
A tuft forming grass 25 to 40 cm tall with fine, hair-like leaves, and delicate, shaking flower heads. The loose flower heads with open clusters of delicate, purplish spikelets (containing the flowers) are held on wavy stems.
When not in flower; other fine-leaved grasses of acid grassland and heath can be similar; Avenella flexuosa has a long ligule, unlike Festuca.
Woods, heaths and moors on acid soil.
It flowers in June and July.
Perennial.
Widespread and fairly frequent in most of Britain except parts of East Anglia.
Common in the Charnwood Forest area, occasional elsewhere in Leicestershire and Rutland. In the 1979 Flora survey of Leicestershire it was found in 49 of the 617 tetrads.
Leicestershire & Rutland Map
Enter a town or village to see local records
MAP KEY:
Yellow squares = NBN records (all known data)
Coloured circles = NatureSpot records: 2025+ | 2020-2024 | pre-2020
UK Map
Species profile
- Common names
- Wavy Hair-grass
- Species group:
- Grasses, Rushes & Sedges
- Kingdom:
- Plantae
- Order:
- Poales
- Family:
- Poaceae
- Records on NatureSpot:
- 39
- First record:
- 06/06/2003 (Neill Talbot)
- Last record:
- 15/10/2024 (Isabel Raval)
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.
In the Latest Records section, click on the header to sort A-Z, and again to sort Z-A. Use the header boxes to filter the list.