Stipa purpurata

Bristly needle grass

Family: Poaceae · Type: perennial · Not Native

Bristly needle grass is a naturalized perennial found in coastal California bioregions including North Coast and Central Coast in meadows, grasslands, open woodlands, and disturbed areas at elevations of 100 to 200 meters. Flowering from April to June, this grass produces delicate inflorescences 3 to 15 centimeters long with dense, compact clusters of small spikelets. Growing with slender stems 20 to 40 centimeters tall, it develops glabrous leaf sheaths and fine leaf blades 5 to 12.5 centimeters long and less than 1.5 millimeters wide. Its leaf blades are narrow and fine, emerging from smooth, pale green sheaths that provide a subtle architectural structure to the plant. The mature spikelets develop dark brown lemmas with distinctive bent awns 10 to 16 millimeters long, which give the grass its characteristic bristly appearance.

Habitat: Meadows, grassland, open woodland, disturbed areas

Bloom period: Apr-Jun

Elevation: 100-200 m

Bioregions: NCo, CCo

California counties: Marin

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