Grass family (Poaceae) NATIVE RANGE Europe and North Africa DESCRIPTION

Tall fescue, previously known as Festuca arundinaceum, is a cool season, perennial, sod-forming bunchgrass. It is a coarse and long-lived grass, with each bunch having 10 to 30 hollow stems, also known as culms, that are 1- 6 ft. tall (0.5-2 m). The culms bear a branched flowering structure called a panicle with 5 to 15 flower spikelets that are to in. (10-19 mm) long, each spikelet containing 3 to 10 florets. The lemmas are about 1/3 in. (7-9 mm) long and have awns that are 1/100 to 2/10 in. (0.3-4 mm) long. The leaf blades are 4 to 24 in. (10-61 cm) long and 0.2 to 4.0 in. (4-10 mm) wide. Mature panicles have a purplish cast which helps to distinguish them from other grasses. The ciliate auricles (earlike structures at the base of the leaf) help to distinguish tall fescue from meadow fescue (Festuca pratensis). ECOLOGICAL THREAT Tall fescue invades native grasslands, savannas, woodlands and other high-light natural habitats. In the Midwest, many thousands of acres of native prairie have been seeded with tall fescue for well meaning but misguided conservation purposes. In the Ozarks, woodlands and barrens were converted to tall fescue pasture to enhance grazing income. Some varieties of tall fescue, including Kentucky 31, harbor a mutualistic fungal endophyte (Neotyphodium coenophialum) that gives it a competitive advantage over some plants, including legumes. As a result, communities dominated by tall fescue are often low in plant species richness. In addition, alkaloids produced by endophyte-infected tall fescue may be toxic to small mammals and of low palatability to ungulates (such as cattle, deer and elk). Many ground-nesting birds, including Bobwhite quail (Colinus virginianus), are unable to use tall fescue fields as foraging or nesting habitat because of a lack of habitat structure and vegetation composition