Vascular Plants of North Carolina
Section: Common Name: Scientific Name: Family:
Account for Meadow Fescue - Lolium pratense   (Hudson) Darbyshire
Members of Poaceae:
Members of Lolium with account distribution info or public map:
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Section 5 » Family Poaceae
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Author(Hudson) Darbyshire
DistributionMostly Mountains and Piedmont; scattered on the Coastal Plain and Outer Banks.

Native of Eurasia; in N.A. throughout except the far north.
AbundanceInfrequent to frequent in the Mountains and Piedmont; rare eastward.
HabitatIntroduced for forage and roadside seeding; now on roadsides, fields, pastures, meadows, lawn weed, disturbed soil, etc.
PhenologyFlowering and fruiting May-July.
IdentificationMeadow Fescue grows up to 4 feet tall. The leaves are relatively sparse, up to a foot long. The inflorescence is long (up to a foot) and rather slender, with short branches; it often leans over with the branches swept towards the ground. The spikelets have 4-10 florets and lack awns. L. arundinaceum is very similar, but it has 3-6 florets per spikelet; see Weakley (2018) for other characters.
Taxonomic CommentsSynonyms include Festuca pratense and Schedonorus p..

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State RankSE
Global RankG5
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B.A. SorrieDisturbed roadside, Whispering Pines, June 2022. MoorePhoto_non_natural
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