Elymus elymoides

Squirreltail, Squirreltail

Family: Poaceae · Type: perennial · Native

Squirreltail is a native perennial grass found across California's diverse mountain, desert, and foothill regions in grasslands, chaparral, and open woodlands. Flowering from April to July, this distinctive grass produces pale green to straw-colored seed heads with dramatic, long spreading awns that can extend up to 12 centimeters. Growing in dense, often bluish-green clumps 2 to 6.5 decimeters tall, it forms erect to somewhat sprawling stems with characteristic narrow leaves. Its leaves are 2 to 4 millimeters wide, ranging from flat to tightly folded, with short ligules less than one millimeter long. The seed heads feature 2 to 4 spikelets per node, with each spikelet bearing multiple florets and long, spreading awns that give the plant its distinctive, bristly appearance.

California counties: Mendocino, San Bernardino, Tuolumne, Kern, Los Angeles, Mono, Fresno, Lassen, Modoc, Alpine, Tulare, Tehama, Inyo, San Diego, Riverside, Siskiyou, Plumas, Ventura, Butte, Nevada, El Dorado, Mariposa, Madera, Alameda, Humboldt, Trinity, Calaveras, Santa Barbara, Santa Clara, Sierra, Sonoma, Shasta, Amador, Contra Costa, Glenn, Lake, Monterey, San Luis Obispo, Sutter, Yuba, Placer, Colusa, Stanislaus, Yolo, San Francisco

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