Lagurus ovatus

Hare's tail grass

Family: Poaceae · Type: annual · Not Native

Hare's tail grass is a naturalized annual grass found in coastal and central California regions including Humboldt County, San Francisco Bay Area, and Sacramento Valley in disturbed places at elevations generally below 200 meters. Flowering from May to July, this grass produces soft, dense, ovoid to cylindric white to pale green flower heads 1.5 to 3 centimeters long that resemble fluffy rabbit tails. Growing with ascending to erect stems 10 to 50 centimeters tall, it forms tufted clusters with soft hairy stems. Its leaves are flat, 2 to 10 centimeters long and 3 to 10 millimeters wide, with inflated sheaths that loosely surround the stem. The flower spikelets feature delicate, soft-hairy glumes with three distinctive awns, including one long awn on the lemma back that can reach up to 22 millimeters.

Habitat: Disturbed places

Bloom period: May-Jul

Elevation: generally < 200 m

Bioregions: NCo (Humboldt Co.), ScV, CCo, SnFrB

California counties: Sonoma, Monterey, San Francisco, Marin, Mendocino, Yolo, Butte, Alameda, Sacramento, Orange

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