Velvet grass
| Velvet grass | ||||||||||||
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Velvet grass ( Lagurus ovatus ) in Corsica |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name of the genus | ||||||||||||
| Lagurus | ||||||||||||
| L. | ||||||||||||
| Scientific name of the species | ||||||||||||
| Lagurus ovatus | ||||||||||||
| L. |
The velvet grass ( Lagurus ovatus ) is a species of the sweet grass family (Poaceae) and the only species of the genus Lagurus . It is also known as bunny tail or bunny tail grass .
description
The annual grass reaches heights of growth of 5 to 60 centimeters. It only forms individual upright stalks , more rarely also open clumps with only a few nodes . The gray-green, flat leaves are velvety hairy and have more or less inflated leaf sheaths . The dull and hairy ligule (ligula) becomes about 3 millimeters long.
The species is characterized by the characteristic soft, spike-like, very dense, spherical to egg-shaped panicles . These are 1 to 7 cm long and up to 2 cm wide. They are pale green, more seldom also purple, finally silvery white. The 8 to 18 mm long awns of the lemmas protrude from the single-flowered spikelets up to 10 mm long .
The grass blooms between April and June, depending on the geographical location.
The number of chromosomes is 2n = 14.
Distribution and location
The velvet grass was originally only native to the Mediterranean area as far as the Arabian Peninsula and along the western European Atlantic coast to Macaronesia. For a long time it has been dragged to many other areas with a favorable climate and is now widespread on all continents . In Central and Northern Europe , it occurs only inconsistently, especially at waste points, roadsides or in sand corridors, sometimes also at loading points or in wasteland . It grows preferentially in lime-free dry grass (silicate grasslands) on low-fine earth, warm, dry soils.
use
The grass is often used for decorative purposes in dry bouquets or grown in gardens as an ornamental plant.
literature
- Ingrid Schönfelder, Peter Schönfelder : Kosmos Atlas Mediterranean and Canary Islands flora. Over 1600 species of plants . 2nd Edition. Franckh-Kosmos, Stuttgart 2002, ISBN 3-440-09361-1 .
- Charles Edward Hubbard: Grasses. Description, distribution, use (= UTB . Volume 233 ). 2nd, revised and expanded edition. Eugen Ulmer, Stuttgart (Hohenheim) 1985, ISBN 3-8001-2537-4 (English: Grasses . Translated by Peter Boeker).
Individual evidence
- ^ Tropicos. [1]
- ↑ Rafaël Govaerts (ed.): Lagurus ovatus. In: World Checklist of Selected Plant Families (WCSP) - The Board of Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew . Retrieved November 4, 2016.
