Sand Fescue

Sand Fescue photos

Family: Grass (Poaceae syn. Gramineae)

Scientific Name:

Vulpia fasciculata

Flowering plants of Sand Fescue
Photo: A J Brown

Other Common Name:

Dune Fescue

Status:

Native to southern and western Europe.

Plant Description:

Annual grass to 50 cm tall with stiff, erect or ascending stems (culms). Leaves rather stiff to 10 cm long and 3 mm wide. Flower-heads are stiffy erect, one-sided, panicles to 12 cm long, and only slightly exserted from the leaf, if at all. Spikelets are 10-18 mm long; the lower glume 0.1-2.5 mm and the upper 10-30 mm long (including an awn to 12 mm). Each spikelet has 2-5 fertile lower florets (8-18 mm long) and 3-6 sterile upper florets. Florets have an awn twice their length.

Habitat:

Scattered along the coast on sand dunes but mainly around Port Phillip and Western Port Bays. Also found in the Mallee on sandy soils around salt lakes.

Region	Salinity Class	Waterlogging Class
Mallee, Western, Gippsland	S0, S1, S2	W0, W1

*coastal dunes

Comments:

Similar to the Silver Grasses; Squirrel-tail Fescue (Vulpia bromoides) and Rat’s-tail Fescue (V. myuros) but differs in its longer florets and awned upper glume and its generally stiffer flower-heads.

Photos of Sand Fescue

Sand Fescue flower-head showing one-sided spikelet arrangement
Photo: A J Brown

Maturing spikelets of Sand Fescue
Photo: A J Brown

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