Common Bent - Agrostis capillaris

Description

20 to 50 cm tall, tufted with creeping rhizomes but no leafy stolons. Panicle is purplish brown and always spreading, with whorled branches.

Similar Species

Creeping Bent (Agrostis stolonifera) and Black Bent (Agrostis gigantea)

Identification difficulty
ID checklist (your specimen should have all of these features)

The panicle is branched. Each spikelet contains only one floret usually completely enclosed by its glumes. The inflorescence is very open with widely spaced spikelets which are not awned. The tiller ligule is shorter than wide - i.e. on the non-flowering shoot.

Recording advice

Look at the tiller ligules, not those on a flowering stem.  Photograph whole plant in flower and detail of tiller ligules if possible

Habitat

Drier and more acid grassland.

When to see it

June to August.

Life History

Perennial.

UK Status

Quite a common grass throughout Britain.

VC55 Status

Quite common in Leicestershire and Rutland. In the 1979 Flora survey of Leicestershire it was found in 388 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
Common Bent
Species group:
Grasses, Rushes & Sedges
Kingdom:
Plantae
Order:
Poales
Family:
Poaceae
Records on NatureSpot:
102
First record:
21/09/1998 (Anthony Fletcher)
Last record:
22/08/2023 (Strong, Kate)

Total records by month

% of records within its species group

10km squares with records

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