Phleum pratense

Cultivated timothy

Family: Poaceae · Type: perennial · Not Native

Cultivated timothy is a naturalized perennial grass found in the California Floristic Province and Great Basin in disturbed sites, roadsides, and cultivated fields at elevations below 2,750 meters. Flowering from May to June, this plant produces pale green to greenish-white flower spikes in dense, compact clusters approximately 5 to 8 millimeters wide. Growing with loosely clumped stems 50 to 100 centimeters tall, the plant has a distinctively swollen base and spreads in dense tufts. Its basal leaves are few and spreading, with stem blades 4 to 20 centimeters long and 3 to 6 millimeters wide. The flower spikes have small glumes with rough backs and delicate lemmas with soft, puberulent veins.

Habitat: Disturbed sites, roadsides, cultivated fields

Bloom period: May-Jun

Elevation: < 2750 m

Bioregions: CA-FP, GB

California counties: Alpine, El Dorado, Modoc, Del Norte, Plumas, Siskiyou, Mono, Fresno, Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Humboldt, Ventura, Placer, Inyo, Lake, Tuolumne, Butte, San Diego, Mendocino, Riverside, Santa Clara, Trinity, Amador, Shasta, Lassen, Madera, Marin, Napa, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Sierra, Tehama, Nevada, Yolo, San Francisco, Kern, Santa Cruz, Mariposa, Sonoma, Tulare, San Mateo, Kings, Alameda, Yuba, Sacramento, Monterey

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