Polypogon australis

Chilean beard grass

Family: Poaceae · Type: perennial · Not Native

Chilean beard grass is a naturalized perennial grass found in coastal and central California regions including Northern Coast, Sierra Nevada Foothills, Sierra Nevada, Great Valley, Central Coast, San Francisco Bay Area, Southern California Coast, and Southern California Transverse Ranges in streambank habitats at elevations below 1,000 meters. Flowering from June to October, this grass produces pale green to purple-tinged spikelets with delicate bristle-like awns. Growing with erect stems 10 to 100 centimeters tall, it forms dense tufted clumps with slender, upright growth. Its leaves are characterized by broad blades 3 to 14 centimeters long and 5 to 7 millimeters wide, with truncate ligules 2 to 4 millimeters long. The grass produces distinctive inflorescences 6 to 16.5 centimeters long with lobed or interrupted flower clusters.

Habitat: Streambanks

Bloom period: Jun-Oct

Elevation: < 1000 m

Bioregions: NCo, NCoRO, CaRF, SNF, n SNH, GV, CCo, SnFrB, SCo, SnGb, SnBr

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