Agrostis canina L.

This is a European species, introduced as a lawn grass or adventive in some other temperate countries. Some variants are awnless or have poorly developed awns. It is distinguished from Agrostis vinealis and other awned species with short paleas by the combination of leafy stolons and long anthers.

Perennial, loosely tufted, stoloniferous, turf-forming. Culms erect or geniculate at base, 20–60 cm tall, 1–1.2 mm in diam., 3–5-noded. Leaf sheaths smooth; leaf blades linear, flat or involute toward apex, 3–20 cm × 1–3 mm, scaberulous; ligule 1.5–4 mm, back scaberulous, apex obtuse or acute. Panicle lax, lanceolate to ovate in outline, 5–12(–20) cm; branches 3–6 per node, spreading at anthesis, usually erect in fruit, capillary, up to 8 cm, scabrid, bare in lower half. Spikelets 1.5–3 mm, purplish brown; glumes lanceolate, subequal, keel scabrid, apex acute; callus hairs ca. 0.2 mm; lemma 2/3 spikelet length, awned from near base to slightly below middle of back, lateral veins minutely exserted, apex obtuse-denticulate; awn weakly geniculate, up to 4.5 mm; palea ca. 0.5 mm. Anthers 1–1.5 mm. Fl. Jul.

Xinjiang, Xizang, Yunnan [Japan, Kashmir, Mongolia, Russia; Europe, NE America].

Damp grasslands; 1400–3800 m.

Agrostis canina L. Sp. PI. 62. 1753
Trichodium caninum Schrad. Fl. Germ. 1: 198. 1806. (Based on Agrostis canina L.)
Agraulus caninus Beauv. Agrost. 5, 146. 147. 1812. (Based on Agrostis canina L.)
Agrostis canina var. alpina Wood, Bot. & Fl. 384. 1870. (Type from mountains of the Eastern
States.) Not A. canina var. alpina Ducomm. 1869. Agrostis alba var. vulgaris f. aristata Millsp. Fl. W. Va. 469. 1892. (Type from Monongalia,
West Virginia.)
Perennial; culms cespitose, glabrous or slightly scaberulous, slender, erect or decumbent at base, 30-50 cm. tall, often producing stolons with fascicled leaves; sheaths glabrous or slightly scaberulous; ligule acute, 2 mm. long; blades flat or loosely involute, mostly less than 1 mm. wide, those of the innovations usually very slender; panicle narrow, loose, 5-10 cm. long, the slender scabrous branches ascending or spreading, as much as 4 cm. long, naked below; glumes equal, acute, 2 mm. long, the lower minutely scabrous on the keel; lemma a little shorter than the glumes, awned about the middle, the awn exserted, bent, the callus minutely pilose; palea minute.
Type locality: Europe.
Distribution: Meadows and open ground, Newfoundland to Quebec, and southward to Delaware and Michigan; possibly native northward but introduced in the United States; native in Kurope and Siberia.

Perennials, Terrestrial, not aquatic, Rhizomes present, Rhizome elongate, creeping, stems distant, Stolons or runners present, Stems nodes swollen or brittle, Stems erect or ascending, Stems geniculate, decumbent, or lax, sometimes rooting at nodes, Stems caespitose, tufted, or clustered, Stems terete, round in cross section, or polygonal, Stem internodes hollow, Stems with inflorescence less than 1 m tall, Stems, culms, or scapes exceeding basal leaves, Leaves mostly cauline, Leaves conspicuously 2-ranked, distichous, Leaves sheathing at base, Leaf sheath mostly open, or loose, Leaf sheath smooth, glabrous, Leaf sheath hairy, hispid or prickly, Leaf sheath and blade differentiated, Leaf blades linear, Leaf blades 2-10 mm wide, Leaf blades mostly flat, Leaf blade margins folded, involute, or conduplicate, Leaf blades mostly glabrous, Ligule present, Ligule an unfringed eciliate membrane, Inflorescence terminal, Inflorescence an open panicle, openly paniculate, branches spreading, Inflorescence a contracted panicle, narrowly paniculate, branches appressed or ascending, Inflorescence solitary, with 1 spike, fascicle, glomerule, head, or cluster per stem or culm, Inflorescence branches more than 10 to numerous , Lower panicle branches whorled, Flowers bisexual, Spikelets laterally compressed, Spikelet less than 3 mm wide, Spikelets with 1 fertile floret, Spikelets solitary at rachis nodes, Spikelets all alike and fertille, Spikelets bisexual, Spikelets disarticulating above the glumes, glumes persistent, Spikelets disarticulating beneath or between the florets, Rachilla or pedicel glabrous, Glumes present, empty bracts, Glumes 2 clearly present, Glumes equal or subequal, Glumes equal to or longer than adjacent lemma, Glume equal to or longer than spikelet, Glumes 1 nerved, Lemmas thin, chartaceous, hyaline, cartilaginous, or membranous, Lemma 3 nerved, Lemma 5-7 nerved, Lemma glabrous, Lemma apex truncate, rounded, or obtuse, Lemma distinctly awned, more than 2-3 mm, Lemma with 1 awn, Lemma awn less than 1 cm long, Lemma awn subapical or dorsal, Lemma awn once geniculate, bent once, Lemma margins thin, lying flat, Lemma straight, Callus or base of lemma evidently hairy, Callus hai rs shorter than lemma, Palea present, well developed, Palea membranous, hyaline, Palea shorter than lemma, Palea 2 nerved or 2 keeled, Stamens 3, Styles 2-fid, deeply 2-branched, Stigmas 2, Fruit - caryopsis, Caryopsis ellipsoid, longitudinally grooved, hilum long-linear.

Agrostis canina, the velvety bentgrass, brown bent or velvet bent, is a species of grass in the family Poaceae.