Avena fatua L.
Wild Oats

Habit: 		Annual.
Culms: 		30-75 cm. tall, erect, in small tufts, stout, glabrous.
Blades: 	Flat, 10-30 cm. tall, 4-8 (15) mm. wide, numerous, scabrous.
Inflorescence: 	Panicle loose and open, 10-30 cm. long, the slender branches ascending or spreading
		bearing relatively few, but large spikelets.
Spikelets: 	Usually large, pendulous, usually 3-flowered, the rachilla bearded (hairs normally stiff and brown)
		below the florets, disarticulating above the glumes and between the florets.
Glumes: 	2-2.5 cm. long, smooth, membranous, usually exceeding the uppermost florets, smooth, striate,
		acuminate, subequal, many-nerved.
Lemmas: 	12-18 mm. long, in the typical form the rachilla and lower part of lemma usually covered with long
		brown or sometimes whitish hairs; 5-9-nerved, rounded on the back, nerved above, the apex frequently shortly 2-toothed, bearing a dorsal twisted and geniculate awn, 3-4 cm. long, the upper empty ones or those enclosing staminate flowers awnless.
Palea: 		2-cleft or 2-toothed, narrow.
Fruit: 		Grain deeply furrowed, usually pubescent, often adhering to the lemma and palea.
Habitat: 	Fields and waste places.
Kansas Range: 	Throughout
Remarks: 	Grain field weed.
Synonyms:	Avena fatua L. var. glabrata Peterm.
		Avena fatua L. var. vilis (Wallr.) Hausskn.
		Avena hybrida Peterm. ex Reichenb. p.p.