Meadow fescue

Festuca pratensis (meadow fescue, sometimes Schedonorus pratensis) is a loosely tufted perennial grass of the family Poaceae growing 30 to 120 cm tall. The smooth, erect culms bear flat, glossy, bright green leaves with small clasping auricles at the leaf base and a short ligule. The inflorescence is a narrow panicle that is contracted before and after flowering but spreads while in bloom, the branches typically paired and bearing several-flowered, awnless or nearly awnless spikelets. It flowers in early summer. Native to Europe and temperate Asia and naturalised in North America and elsewhere, meadow fescue grows in moist meadows, pastures, riverbanks and grassy roadsides; it is an important forage and hay grass and a parent of agricultural festulolium hybrids.