草甸羊茅 cao dian yang mao

Festuca elatior Linnaeus subsp. pratensis (Hudson) Hackel; F. elatior var. pratensis (Hudson) A. Gray; F. fluitans Linnaeus var. pratensis (Hudson) Hudson; Lolium pratense (Hudson) Darbyshire; Schedonorus pratensis (Hudson) P. Beauvois.

Plant loosely tufted; shoots extravaginal. Culms 30–130 cm tall, nodes 2–4. Leaf sheaths glabrous; auricles falcate, glabrous; leaf blades flat or loosely rolled, 10–25 cm × 2–7 mm, glabrous, veins 18–25; adaxial to abaxial sclerenchyma strands present; ligule 0.2–0.5 mm, margin ciliate. Panicle compact except at anthesis, (6–)10–25 cm; branches usually paired, (3.5–)4–6.5 cm, unequal, longer branch with 4–6 spikelets, shorter branch with 1–3 spikelets. Spikelets 8.5–17 mm; florets (2–)4–12; glumes glabrous or scabrid; lower glume (2–)2.6–4(–4.5) mm; upper glume (3–)3.5–5 mm; rachilla internodes scabrid; lemmas (5–)6–8 mm, smooth or scabrid, apex hyaline, acute, rarely awn–tipped; awns 0–2 mm; palea keels scabrid. Anthers (0.5–)2–4.6 mm. Ovary apex glabrous. 2n = 14, 28, 42, 70.

Cultivated. Guizhou, Jiangsu, Jilin, Qinghai, Sichuan, Xinjiang, Yunnan [SW Asia, Europe; cultivated North America].

This grass (Meadow Fescue) was widely cultivated as a pasture grass in the late 1800s and early 1900s and is now found in most temperate parts of the world. It may have been introduced to China at that time.