Reed fescue

Festuca arundinacea (tall fescue, now often placed in Schedonorus or Lolium) is a coarse, deep-rooted perennial grass of the family Poaceae, forming dense tufts and growing 0.5 to 1.5 m tall. The stout culms bear broad, flat, dark green, conspicuously ribbed leaves with rough margins and small claw-like auricles at the base of the blade. The inflorescence is a large, nodding, somewhat open panicle whose branches carry several-flowered spikelets; the lemmas are usually awnless or with a short point. It flowers in early summer. Native to Europe, North Africa and temperate Asia and widely naturalised, tall fescue grows in meadows, pastures, roadsides and damp grassland; it is extensively cultivated as a forage and turf grass, often harbouring an endophytic fungus that can cause toxicity in grazing livestock.