Helictotrichon pratense

Helictotrichon pratense (now Helictochloa pratensis), the meadow oat-grass, is a slender, densely tufted perennial grass of the Poaceae family native to temperate Europe and western Asia, where it is a characteristic species of short, chalk-grassland turf and limestone pastures. From a compact, fibrous base it produces narrow, stiff, inrolled, glaucous blue-green basal leaves five to fifteen centimetres long with finely roughened margins. The smooth, erect flowering culms rise thirty to eighty-five centimetres tall, almost leafless above the basal tuft, and in early summer bear a slender, narrow, sparingly branched panicle five to fifteen centimetres long. The spikelets are large for the size of the plant, about one to one and a half centimetres long, three- to six-flowered, shining and pale straw-coloured, each floret bearing a long, geniculate, twisted brown awn. The species is a reliable indicator of unimproved calcareous grassland.