Rat's-tail Fescue - Vulpia myuros

Grows up to 70 cm in height with pale green or straw coloured inflorescences and non-inflated leaf sheaths, but with upper sheath reaching the base of inflorescence. Inflorescence is 5 to 30 cm long, interrupted, slender and drooping at the tip. Spikelet 14 to 20 mm long – the upper glume 3 or four times longer than the lower.

Vulpia bromoides, the Squirrel-tail Fescue

A sprawling grass. The long, narrow inflorescence is close to a simple spike, but some of the spikelets do have short stalks. The spikelets are arranged alternately up the rhachis, and tend to droop to one side giving the inflorescence a one-sided look. The spikelets have 4-7 florets which are long-awned. There are two special features – the upper glume is at least twice as long as the lower; and the top leaf sheath often encloses the lowest part of the inflorescence.

Photograph details of the glumes and inflorescence - retain a specimen for verification

Railway ballast, dry and well drained soil, roadsides and waste ground.

Flowers May to July.

Annual.

Local and occasional in England and Wales, scarce elsewhere in Britain.

Occasional in Leicestershire and Rutland. In the 1979 Flora survey of Leicestershire it was found in 75 of the 617 tetrads.