Festuca temulenta

Darnel, tares, Tares

Family: Poaceae · Type: annual · Not Native

Darnel is a naturalized annual grass found throughout California except the eastern Sierra Nevada in open, disturbed sites at elevations of 150 to 1,750 meters. Flowering from April to June, this plant produces pale green to whitish spikelets in spike-like inflorescences 7 to 28 centimeters long. Growing with ascending to erect stems 40 to 90 centimeters tall that are smooth to slightly rough, it develops densely clustered grass blades. Its leaf blades are 5 to 20 centimeters long, typically folded when young and 2 to 7 millimeters wide, with very short ligules less than 2 millimeters in length. The spikelets are large, measuring 15 to 30 millimeters long, with prominent lance-shaped glumes that often exceed other spikelet parts.

Habitat: Open, disturbed sites

Bloom period: Apr-Jun

Elevation: 150-1750 m

Bioregions: CA (exc SNE)

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