Eragrostis pectinacea

Tufted lovegrass

Family: Poaceae · Type: annual · Native

Tufted lovegrass is a native annual grass found across California's varied landscapes, growing in open areas and disturbed sites. Flowering from July to October, this delicate grass produces small gray-green to red-tinged spikelets in open, spreading inflorescences 10 to 25 centimeters long. Growing with erect stems 15 to 60 centimeters tall that are occasionally bent at the base, it forms loose, airy tufts. Its grass blades are narrow, flat, and 2 to 15 centimeters long, with white-tufted hair at the leaf collar margins. The delicate spikelets contain 5 to 15 individual florets, each with thin, prominent-veined lemmas that range from gray-green to subtly red-tinted at the tips.

California counties: Kern, Stanislaus, Fresno, Los Angeles, Tehama, Santa Clara, Ventura, San Luis Obispo, Riverside, Nevada, Santa Barbara, San Bernardino, Butte, Tulare, Humboldt, Colusa, San Diego, Monterey, Marin, Amador, Imperial, Lake, Orange, Sutter, Sacramento, Glenn, Yolo, Mendocino, Inyo, Calaveras, Merced, Placer, Solano, Sonoma, San Joaquin, Madera, Alameda, Santa Cruz

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