Tuft forming, 15 to 80 cm tall usually with creeping rhizomes and surface runners. Basal leaves and those of runners are all bristle like and up to 40 cm long with groove on upper side. Those of the flowering stems are flat when fresh 0.5 to 3 mm wide. Not always red tinged.  The young leaves on tillers have sheaths fused almost to the top, and some or all of the tillers are extravaginal (i.e. arise at right angles to the parent shoot, breaking through the parental sheath at the base.)

Festuca ovina 

The young leaves on tillers have sheaths fused almost to the top

Some or all of the tillers are extravaginal (i.e. arise at right angles to the parent shoot, breaking through the parental sheath at the base.)

Check leaf sheaths of young leaves on tillers

Meadows, roadside verges, dry grassland etc.

May to July.

Perennial.

Very common throughout Britain.

Very common in Leicestershire and Rutland. In the 1979 Flora survey of Leicestershire it was found in 542 of the 617 tetrads.