Festuca perennis

Rye grass, Rye Grass

Family: Poaceae · Type: perennial · Not Native

Conservation status: Cal-IPC Yes

Rye grass is a naturalized perennial herb found in California Floristic Province and the Panamint Range in the Death Valley Mountains, occurring in dry to moist disturbed sites and abandoned fields at elevations below 1,000 meters. Flowering from May to September, this grass produces pale green to greenish-white spikelets 5 to 22 millimeters long with delicate lance-linear structures. Growing with ascending to erect stems 30 to 100 centimeters tall that are generally glabrous, it forms dense clusters in open landscapes. Its leaf blades are narrow, measuring 4 to 30 centimeters long and 2 to 5 millimeters wide, with short ligules 1 to 3 millimeters in length. The plant's spike-like inflorescences spread 3 to 30 centimeters wide, creating a distinctive grassy appearance in disturbed habitats.

Habitat: dry to moist disturbed sites, abandoned fields

Bloom period: May-Sep

Elevation: < 1000 m

Bioregions: CA-FP, DMtns (Panamint Range)

California counties: Humboldt, Orange, Los Angeles, Ventura, Kern, Imperial, Tulare, San Diego, Sutter, Nevada, Placer, Calaveras, San Joaquin, Amador, Sacramento, Yolo, Yuba, Santa Barbara, Riverside, Alameda, Butte, Tehama, Fresno, Napa, San Mateo, San Bernardino, San Luis Obispo, Sonoma, Santa Cruz, Santa Clara, Monterey, Stanislaus, San Francisco, El Dorado, Contra Costa, Madera

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