Avena fatua

Wild oat

Family: Poaceae · Type: annual · Not Native

Conservation status: Cal-IPC Yes

Wild oat is a naturalized annual grass found in the California Floristic Province, Modoc Plateau, and Mojave Desert in disturbed sites at elevations below 2,400 meters. Flowering from April to June, this plant produces pale yellow to tan-colored flowers in distinctive open, drooping spikelets with long, twisted awns. Growing with erect stems 30 to 160 centimeters tall, it develops prominent branching flower clusters that arch and sway in the wind. Its leaves are long and narrow, with blade-like sections 10 to 45 centimeters in length and 4 to 15 millimeters wide, featuring smooth margins. The plant is characterized by its complex flower structure with bearded bases and lemmas that have dramatically bent and twisted awns up to 40 millimeters long.

Habitat: Disturbed sites

Bloom period: Apr-Jun

Elevation: < 2400 m

Bioregions: CA-FP, MP, DMoj

California counties: Los Angeles, San Luis Obispo, Kern, San Diego, Riverside, Orange, San Bernardino, Alameda, Amador, Butte, Contra Costa, Fresno, Humboldt, Imperial, Lake, Monterey, San Mateo, Santa Barbara, Santa Clara, Sonoma, Trinity, Tulare, Ventura, Yolo, Madera, Napa, San Francisco, Solano, Inyo, Sacramento, El Dorado, Colusa, Sutter, Calaveras, Glenn, Nevada, San Joaquin, Placer, Yuba, Plumas, Kings, Marin, Mariposa, Santa Cruz, Tuolumne, Tehama, Merced, Mendocino, Lassen, Stanislaus, Modoc, Siskiyou, Shasta, San Benito

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