Gaudinia fragilis

Fragile oat

Family: Poaceae · Type: annual · Not Native

Fragile oat is a naturalized annual found in southern North Coast Ranges of Sonoma County on grassy hilltops with thin, rocky soil at approximately 100 meters elevation. Flowering in June, this plant produces delicate spike-like inflorescences with pale translucent spikelets to 20 millimeters long. Growing erect or ascending to 35 centimeters tall with distinctively long-shaggy hairy stems and leaves, it forms a slender, fragile grass. Its leaves feature long-shaggy hairy blades with short, truncate ligules, while the plant's unique characteristic is its inflorescence axis that breaks apart at prominent joints. The spikelets contain 3 to 6 florets, each with an elegant twisted awn 4 to 15 millimeters long that emerges from above the lemma's midpoint.

Habitat: Grassy hilltop on thin, rocky soil

Bloom period: Jun

Elevation: +- 100 m.

Bioregions: s NCoRO (Sonoma Co.)

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