Yellow oatgrass

Trisetum flavescens, the yellow oat-grass, is a tufted perennial grass of the family Poaceae growing 30 to 80 cm tall. The slender, erect culms arise from a loosely tufted base with short rhizomes. The leaves are flat, soft and slightly hairy, with a short ligule. The inflorescence is a shining, somewhat open panicle that is golden-yellow to greenish, 5 to 15 cm long, the branches bearing small spikelets each with two or three florets; each lemma carries a fine bent dorsal awn that gives the panicle a delicate glistening appearance. It flowers in early to mid summer. Native across Europe, North Africa and western Asia and introduced elsewhere, yellow oat-grass grows in dry to mesic neutral and calcareous meadows, pastures and grassy banks, and is valued as a meadow hay grass although it can be mildly toxic to grazing horses.