Rats-tail Fescue - introduced (*Vulpia myuros forma myuros)

Native to Europe. Annual. C3.

Family. Poaceae (Grass family).

A common weed.

Identification:

• it is a slender grass
• the flowers form a narrow one-sided, contracted cluster
• the 1st glume is 0.5-2.5mm, and the 2nd glume 3-8mm long
• the spikelets have 3-7 long-awned lemmas, much exceeding the glumes
• the flowers are partly enclosed by the upper leaf
• the leaves are flat or rolled
• the ligule is membranous, 0.1-0.4mm long.

The small first glume and the partly enclosed flower cluster are distinctive.

It is an environmental weed.

Vulpia: in honour of J.S. Vulpius, 1760-1840, a German chemist; myuros: long and tapering, like a mouse's tail.

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