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: 2020+ | 2015-2019 | pre-2015

UK Map

Species profile

Common names
Wild-oat
Species group:
Grasses, Rushes & Sedges
Kingdom:
Plantae
Order:
Poales
Family:
Poaceae
Records on NatureSpot:
31
First record:
13/07/2008 (Calow, Graham)
Last record:
27/06/2023 (Nicholls, David)

Total records by month

% of records within its species group

10km squares with records

The latest images and records displayed below include those awaiting verification checks so we cannot guarantee that every identification is correct. Once accepted, the record displays a green tick.

In the Latest Records section, click on the header to sort A-Z, and again to sort Z-A. Use the header boxes to filter the list.

Latest images

Latest records