Avena sativa L.   Poaceae (Grass Family)   Europe   Cultivated Oat

                                        May Photo

Plant Characteristics: Annual with stout culms, to 1.9 m. tall; blades 4-8 mm.  wide; ligule short and jagged; panicle loose, open, with horizontal branches; spikelets mostly 2-fld.; the florets not separating readily from the glumes; glumes subequal, several nerved, longer than the lower floret, usually exceeding the upper floret, lemma indurate except toward the summit, nerved above, ca. 2 cm. long, glabrous, awns straight, often wanting.

Habitat:  Escape from cultivation.  Sometimes seen along roadsides.  April-June.

Name:  Avena, the ancient Latin name.  (Munz, Flora So. Calif. 947).  Sati-vus, cultivated.  (Bailey 21).  Latin, sativus, that which is sown.  (Jaeger 228).

General:  Rare in the study area having been found only once and this just below the bluff top in the Castaways area.  It is interesting that in one small area, fed by runoff from the bluff top, there were three grasses rare or uncommon in the study area.  In addition to A. sativa there were Phalaris canariensis and Hordeum vulgare.  (my comments).        Oats is a recognized natural food, appealing in taste and nourishment, and has long been used as a family remedy in an infusion, usually accepted by patients of weak digestion when other foods fail.  The crushed or coarsely flaked grain is known as oatmeal. The properties of Avena sativa in tincture of oats beards have been recognized by people of all lands as a naturalizer to the sexual gland system.  An important restorative in nervous prostration and exhaustion after all febrile diseases, it seems to support the heart muscles and urinary organs. (Hutchens 148).      About 10-15 species of temp.  (Munz, Flora So. Calif. 947).        Cultivated for grain; believed to be derived from wild A. fatua by early humans.  Hybridizes with A. fatua.  (Hickman, Ed. 1236.

Text Ref:  Bailey 144; Hickman, Ed. 1236; Munz, Flora So. Calif. 948.

Photo Ref:  May-July 92 # 12,13,14.

Identity: by R. De Ruff, confirmed by John Johnson.

First Found:  May 1992.

Computer Ref:  Plant Data 435.

Plant specimen donated to UC Riverside in 2004.

Last edit 8/7/05. 

                           May Photo                                                          May Photo