Agrostis gigantea

Redtop, Redtop

Family: Poaceae · Type: perennial · Not Native

Redtop is a naturalized perennial grass found in California's Central Valley and Foothills in roadsides and disturbed areas at elevations below 2,000 meters. Flowering from June to September, this grass produces small, delicate flowers in open, widely ovate panicles 8 to 25 centimeters long. Growing with spreading stems 20 to 100 centimeters tall, it develops short rhizomes up to 25 centimeters long and has a somewhat scaly base. Its leaf blades are flat, 4 to 10 centimeters long and 3 to 8 millimeters wide, with distinctive ligules 2 to 6 millimeters long that are longer than they are wide. The spikelets feature tiny glumes 2 to 3 millimeters long and lemmas without prominent awns.

Habitat: Roadsides, disturbed areas

Bloom period: Jun-Sep

Elevation: < 2000 m

Bioregions: CA-FP

California counties: Humboldt, Marin, Mariposa, Shasta, Siskiyou, Placer, Santa Clara, Butte, Inyo, Mono, San Bernardino, Calaveras, El Dorado, Santa Cruz, San Mateo, San Luis Obispo, San Francisco, Napa, Monterey, Madera, Fresno, Los Angeles, Glenn, Del Norte, Alpine, Kern, Lassen, Mendocino, Nevada, Plumas, Santa Barbara, Sierra, Sonoma, Tulare, Tuolumne, Ventura, Tehama, Yuba, Modoc, Trinity, Lake, Orange, Amador, San Diego, Sacramento, Yolo

Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.