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cock's-foot

Dactylis glomerata

Summary 2

Dactylis glomerata, also known as cock's-foot, orchard grass, or cat grass (due to its popularity for use with domestic cats) is a common species of grass in the genus Dactylis. It is a cool-season perennial C3 bunchgrass native throughout most of Europe, temperate Asia, and northern Africa.

Cocksfoot is a densely tufted perennial grass with erect or ascending flowering stems up to 140 cm. Ligule: 2-12 mm long, subacute, torn, membranous. Leaf blades green or glaucous, mostly hairless but occasionally hairy; 10-45 cm long, 2-14 mm wide. Flowers: panicle 2-20 cm long, cylindrical to ovoid, green or purplish, the lowermost branch in panicle is usually much further down stem than rest and about half as long as the panicle; spikelets 5-8 mm long; glumes subequal; lemma: 4-7 mm long, with mucro or awn-tip, up to one quarter as long as the lemma. Fruits: dispersed by wind and animals; seeds viable in the soil for 2-3 years.

Distribution 3

Grytviken

Comments 4

Easily recognisable species due to dense, clumpy spikelets. In a non-flowering state it may be spotted amongst other grasses by its tufts of strongly compressed vegetative shoots with keeled sheaths.

Sources and Credits

  1. (c) Sara Rall, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC), uploaded by Sara Rall
  2. Adapted by stuwhiterod from a work by (c) Wikipedia, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dactylis_glomerata
  3. (c) Kelvin Floyd, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA)
  4. (c) stuwhiterod, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA)

More Info

iNat Map

Group Grass
Category Non Native
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