Cynosurus echinatus

Bristly dogtail grass, Bristly Dogtail Grass

Family: Poaceae · Type: perennial · Not Native

Conservation status: Cal-IPC Yes

Bristly dogtail grass is a naturalized annual grass found in northwestern California, Sierra Nevada foothills, central and northern Sierra Nevada, Sacramento Valley, central western, and southwestern California in open, disturbed sites at elevations generally below 1,000 meters. Flowering from May to July, this grass produces small pale green to whitish flowers in dense, one-sided inflorescences about 1 to 4 centimeters long. Growing in tufted clusters with erect or spreading stems 10 to 70 centimeters tall, it forms dense grass clumps with smooth, glabrous stems. Its leaf blades are 2 to 14 millimeters wide, with leaf ligules 2.5 to 5 millimeters long and bluntly rounded. The fertile spikelets feature distinctive glumes 6 to 12 millimeters long with prominent awns, while sterile spikelets have keeled, ciliate glumes with 6 to 18 florets.

Habitat: Open, disturbed sites

Bloom period: May-Jul

Elevation: generally < 1000 m

Bioregions: NW, SNF, n&ampc SNH, ScV, CW, SW

California counties: Humboldt, Butte, El Dorado, Marin, Mendocino, San Bernardino, San Diego, Santa Cruz, Tehama, Trinity, Tuolumne, Contra Costa, Los Angeles, Orange, San Francisco, Sonoma, Yuba, Santa Clara, Madera, Riverside, Calaveras, Napa, Nevada, Amador, San Mateo, San Benito, Placer, Ventura, Santa Barbara, Siskiyou, San Luis Obispo, Sacramento, Plumas, Monterey, Fresno, Mariposa, Sutter, Solano, Shasta, Lake, Sierra, Del Norte, Yolo, Colusa

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