Apera spica-venti

Loose silky bent

Family: Poaceae · Type: annual · Not Native

Loose silky bent is a naturalized annual grass found in northern San Joaquin Valley near La Grange in eastern Stanislaus County and southern Coast Ranges at elevations of 90 to 430 meters in disturbed and open sites. Flowering from May to June, this grass produces pale green to whitish flower clusters in delicate, open panicles 8 to 25 centimeters long. Growing with slender stems 20 to 120 centimeters tall, sometimes forming loose tufts, it has a spreading and somewhat variable growth habit. Its leaf blades are 3 to 5 millimeters wide, nearly smooth to slightly rough on the upper surface, with ligules 3 to 9 millimeters long. The flower spikelets feature small glumes 1.5 to 3 millimeters long and lemmas with a distinctive 4 to 9 millimeter awn.

Habitat: Disturbed and open sites

Bloom period: May-Jun

Elevation: 90-430 m

Bioregions: n SnJV (near La Grange, e Stanislaus Co.), s SCoRO

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