Wild Oats
Avena fatua
Photographed along Mesquite Wash, Maricopa Co., Arizona. April 2008.
ANNUAL: Annual spring grass with several stems rising to
1½ meters tall.
FRUIT: The developing seeds soon weigh down the spikelets supported on
fine, flexible stalks. Awns about a cm long on the lemmas.
LEAVES: Leaf blades are about a cm wide.
RANGE: Fairly common in spring in the Sonoran Desert in Arizona and
Mexico along washes, ditch banks and at roadsides. Disturbed soils. Native to
the Old World but long-naturalized across much of North America. Hybridizes
with cultivated oats, Avena sativa.
FLOWERS: Two or three green florets per spikelet.
UNARMED