Wild-oat

Wild-oat - Avena fatua

Alternative names
Wild Oat
Description

A tall plant with a loose panicle of large spikelets that droop in fruit. The spikelets are 18 to 25 mm long, mature plants have their lemmas clothed at the base with silky brown hairs, and at least the lowest with a bent awn.

Similar Species

Avena sativa.  Other Avena may be cultivated and present as rare aliens.  This is a difficult genus; refer to Stace (4th edn.) for details.

Identification difficulty
ID checklist (your specimen should have all of these features)

Strongly bent awns and lemmas usually hairy at maturity

Recording advice

You must attach images that show sufficient detail for the plant to be identified.

Habitat

Wild Oat is a casual annual of arable land and a pest amongst cereal crops.

When to see it

June to September.

Life History

Annual.

UK Status

Frequent throughout much of Britain.

VC55 Status

Common in Leicestershire and Rutland. In the 1979 Flora survey of Leicestershire it was found in 462 of the 617 tetrads.

Leicestershire & Rutland Map

MAP KEY:

Yellow squares = NBN records (all known data)
Coloured circles = NatureSpot records: 2025+ | 2020-2024 | pre-2020

UK Map

Additional images

All NatureSpot records