Scientific Name
Vulpia myuros (L.) C.C. Gmel. (Synonyms: Festuca megalura; Festuca myuros; Vulpia megalura)
Common Name(s)
Annual fescue, rattail sixweeks grass, rattail fescue
Tribe / Family Name
Poeae
Flowering Period
April to June
Symbol
VUMY
Description
Annual fescue is an introduced cool-season cleistogamous annual bunchgrass that has a shallow fibrous root system; it relies primarily on seed stored in the soil for regeneration. Culms usually range from 10–75 cm in height. Its inflorescence is a dense panicle or spike-like raceme that is 3–25 cm long with appressed-ascending branches, often 1-sided, and often enclosed in the uppermost sheath. Spikelets are 5–12 mm long and usually 3- to 5-flowered; disarticulation above the glumes. Glumes are very narrowly lanceolate, glabrous, and extremely unequal (lower glumes up to 2 mm long, 1-nerved, occasionally scale-like, 1/5–1/2 the length of the upper glume; upper glumes 2.5–5.5 mm long, 1- to 3-nerved, lanceolate). Lemmas are 4.5–7 mm long, linear-lanceolate, scabrous to puberulent, usually long ciliate towards the tips, 5-nerved, and awned (10–15 mm long). Sheaths are open and usually glabrous. Auricles are absent. Ligules are 0.3–0.5 mm long, membranous, usually higher on the sides, and erose-ciliolate. Blades are sometimes up to 17 cm long, up to 3 mm wide, filiform or linear, involute, occasionally flat, glabrous below, and scabrous-puberulent above.
General Info
Annual fescue is a drought-tolerant grass that can be found in disturbed areas, waste areas, open understory, foothills, plains, and montane sites.
Similar Species
Annual fescue may look similar to other fescue (Vulpia, Festuca, and Schedonorus) plants due to their common spikelet features (for example, lemmas are awn-tipped and closely or loosely separated from each other in a herringbone pattern). However, upon close inspection, the extremely unequal glumes of annual fescue can be differentiated from the unequal glumes of sixweeks fescue (Vulpia octoflora) and brome fescue (Vulpia bromoides). Also, some fescue species may look like certain brome (Bromus) plants.
Picture of growth habit.
Inflorescence is a dense panicle or spike-like raceme.
Inflorescence is a dense panicle or spike-like raceme. Photo by Justin J. Trujillo.
Close-up picture of spikelet.
Close-up picture of membranous ligule.
Illustration of annual fescue. USDA-NRCS PLANTS Database / Britton, N.L., and A. Brown. 1913. <i>An illustrated flora of the northern United States, Canada and the British Possessions. 3 vols</i>. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York. Vol. 1: 269.
Distribution map of annual fescue. USDA PLANTS Database, 2022.