An attractive grass 15 to 40 cm tall, that grows in loose tufts. The delicate flower stems of quaking-grass are branched with pendulous flowering spikelets that shiver in the breeze, giving the plant its common name. The leaves have a slightly waxy bloom and slender, blunt tips.

Indicator Species - Leicestershire, Leicester & Rutland Local Nature Recovery Strategy.

Provide a photo of the plant in its habitat (RPR)

Dry neutral or calcareous grassland

Flowering June and July.

Widespread and fairly frequent in Britain.

Locally frequent but threatened and declining through habitat loss in Leicestershire and Rutland.

In the 1979 Flora survey of Leicestershire it was found in 213 of the 617 tetrads and and in the Flora of Rutland (Messenger 1971) in 43 tetrads.

It is listed on the current VC55 Rare Plant Register (Hall and Woodward 2022) due to the threat-level