Family |
Poaceae
Avena fatua
L.
Avena fatua L.
(Sp. Pl.; Nouvelle Flore du Liban et de la Syrie, vol. 3; 1970)
• Life-form & habit : Annual therophyte; culms erect, slender, 30–120 cm tall, glabrous; forming loose tufts.
• Leaves : Linear, flat, 10–30 cm × 3–10 mm, rough on the margins; ligule membranous, long (4–8 mm), acute; auricles absent; blades green, sometimes slightly pubescent.
• Inflorescence & flowers : Panicle large, lax, nodding, 10–30 cm long; spikelets 2–3-flowered, long-pedicellate; glumes unequal, lanceolate; lemmas with a long, geniculate and twisted awn arising from the back.
• Fruit : Caryopsis enclosed within the lemma and palea, elongated; dispersal facilitated by the twisting awn.
• Phenology : Flowers from March to May; fruiting from April to June.
• Habitat & elevation : Cultivated fields, disturbed soils, roadsides, and fallow land; from sea level up to 1800 m.
• Lebanese distribution : Widespread throughout Lebanon, especially in agricultural areas; common.
• Native range : Algeria, Canary Is., Cyprus, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon-Syria, Libya, Madeira, Morocco, Palestine, Sinai, Syria, Tunisia, Türkiye.
• Conservation notes : Not threatened; widespread weed species with high ecological plasticity.
• Diagnostic remarks : Easily recognised by its lax nodding panicle and spikelets with long, twisted, geniculate awns; distinguished from cultivated oats by its more fragile spikelets and disarticulating florets.