Wavy Hair-grass - Avenella flexuosa

Alternative names
Deschampsia flexuosa
Description

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.

Identification difficulty
ID checklist (your specimen should have all of these features)

When not in flower; other fine-leaved grasses of acid grassland and heath can be similar; Avenella flexuosa has a long ligule, unlike Festuca

Habitat

Woods, heaths and moors on acid soil.

When to see it

It flowers in June and July.

Life History

Perennial.

UK Status

Widespread and fairly frequent in most of Britain except parts of East Anglia.

VC55 Status

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

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.

Latest images

Latest records