Cocksfoot - introduced (*Dactylis glomerata)

Native to the Europe, Asia and Africa. Perennial. C3.

A common weed in disturbed areas.

Identification:

• the panicle is open, made up of several long-branched, clusters
• each cluster is on one side of the branch
• the glumes are about the same size as the lemmas
• the spikelets have about 5 shortly-awned lemmas
• the leaves are flat or folded
• the ligule is membranous and 1.5-5mm long.

Recognise Cocksfoot from the dense egg-shaped clusters.

It is an environmental weed.

daktylos: finger (Greek), referring to the cylindrical young flower clusters; glomeratus: club-shaped.

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