Eragrostis barrelieri

Mediterranean love grass

Family: Poaceae · Type: annual · Not Native

Mediterranean love grass is a naturalized annual grass found in the Central Valley, southern Coast Ranges, southern California, western Transverse Ranges, San Bernardino Mountains, and Peninsular Ranges in disturbed soils at elevations below 1,200 meters. Flowering from June to July, this grass produces small, densely clustered spikelets with gray-green to reddish lemmas in open, spreading inflorescences. Growing 25 to 60 centimeters tall, it forms tufted or occasionally prostrate-spreading clumps with branching stems that are glandular near the nodes. Its leaf blades are 2 to 10 centimeters long, 2 to 5 millimeters wide, and generally glabrous, with flat to slightly inrolled tips. The tiny fruits are elliptic-ovoid, approximately 0.8 millimeters long, creating delicate, loose panicles across disturbed landscapes.

Habitat: Disturbed soils

Bloom period: Jun-Jul

Elevation: < 1200 m

Bioregions: GV, SCoRO, SCo, WTR, SnBr, PR

California counties: Santa Barbara, San Bernardino, Fresno, Ventura, Los Angeles, Orange, San Diego, Riverside, Solano, Tuolumne, Yolo, San Luis Obispo

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