Growing in tufts, Crested dog's-tail is a stiff-looking grass, with a tightly packed, rectangular flower spike. Look for it in lowland meadows and grasslands.
Once grown as a crop and used for making bonnets, Crested dog's-tail is a common, tufted, perennial grass of grasslands and meadows. It tolerates many different kinds of soils, but is generally a lowland species and does not like to be waterlogged.
How to identify
Growing in compact tufts, Crested dog's-tail is a rather stiff-looking grass with narrow, green leaves. It has short, upright flower spikes with a tightly packed cluster of spikelets (containing the flowers) arranged in a long, rectangular shape.
Distribution
Widespread.
Did you know?
Crested dog's-tail is the foodplant of caterpillars of several butterfly species in the brown and skipper families.
