Water Bent - Polypogon viridis

A sturdy grass with dense but interrupted panicles of pale green to purplish flowers, the glumes and lemma without awns. Trailing stems, 60 to100 cm, rooting at nodes. Ligule is oblong with a lobed membrane.

Found as a casual on tips and damp waste ground, it is spreading as a weed of nurseries, gardens and pavement cracks often favouring main roads and urban areas.

Flowering June to September.

A short-lived, stoloniferous perennial, often flowering in first year.

An alien that is swiftly spreading in Britain.

Rare casual in Leicestershire and Rutland. It was not recorded in the 1979 Flora survey of Leicestershire.