Festuca pratensis

Meadow fescue

Family: Poaceae · Type: perennial · Not Native

Meadow fescue is a naturalized perennial grass found in California Floristic Province and Great Basin regions in disturbed places at elevations generally below 2,000 meters. Flowering from May to July, this grass produces small greenish spikelets in narrow clusters 10 to 25 centimeters long. Growing in loosely clumped form with stems 30 to 130 centimeters tall, it has visible nodes and erect leafy stems. Its leaves are flat or loosely rolled, 10 to 30 centimeters long and 2 to 7 millimeters wide, with small auricles that partially clasp the stem. The spikelets contain 4 to 10 florets, with each lemma measuring 6 to 8 millimeters long.

Habitat: Disturbed places

Bloom period: May-Jul

Elevation: generally < 2000 m

Bioregions: CA-FP (less common SW), GB

California counties: San Bernardino, Kern, Siskiyou, Inyo, Orange, Los Angeles, Riverside, Nevada, Modoc, Contra Costa, Plumas, Lassen, Humboldt, Trinity, Tuolumne, Alameda, Mariposa, Mono, Del Norte, Shasta, Santa Clara, San Diego, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Alpine, Ventura, Butte, Mendocino, Marin, Monterey, Santa Cruz, Placer, Sacramento, Solano

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