Bearded fescue

Vulpia ciliata, the bearded or ciliate fescue, is a small tufted annual grass in the family Poaceae, native to dry, sandy or stony open ground around the Mediterranean and across western Europe to central Asia, and naturalised elsewhere as a ruderal of roadsides and disturbed soils. It produces several slender, erect or geniculately ascending culms 10-40 cm tall, with narrow, often inrolled, glabrous leaves and small membranous ligules. The inflorescence is a slender, one-sided, slightly secund panicle 4-15 cm long bearing short-pediceled spikelets, each with three to seven florets; the diagnostic feature is the conspicuously ciliate margin of the lemmas, which are tipped with long, slender, scabrous awns 8-15 mm long that catch on passing animal fur and clothing for dispersal. The whole plant dries to a pale straw colour by early summer.