Avena sterilis

Animated oat

Family: Poaceae · Type: annual · Not Native

Animated oat is a naturalized annual found in coastal California regions including Alameda, Contra Costa, and San Diego counties in disturbed sites at elevations of 30 to 120 meters. Flowering from March to June, this plant produces pale yellow to tan spikelets with distinctive bearded flowering parts that create an intricate, animated appearance. Growing with slender stems 30 to 120 centimeters tall that become upright at maturity, it develops long, narrow leaves 8 to 60 centimeters in length with sparsely hairy margins. Its complex flowering structures feature lemmas with forked tips and dramatically twisted awns that can reach 9 centimeters long, creating a distinctive and dramatic seed dispersal mechanism. The fruit is characterized by 2 to 5 florets that detach together as a unified unit when mature.

Habitat: Disturbed sites

Bloom period: Mar-Jun

Elevation: 30-120 m

Bioregions: CCo (Alameda, Contra Costa cos.), SCo (San Diego Co.)

California counties: San Diego, Marin, Contra Costa, Alameda, Santa Clara, Yolo

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