Tall Fescue (Lolium arundinaceum (Schreb.) Darbysh.)
Also classified as Festuca arundinacea Schreb., Schedonorus arundinaceus (Schreb.) Dumort.
↑Range - Expand
| Legend | Color |
| Introduced | |
| Introduced or Not Present |
This tentative map is based on our own research. It may have limited data on Canada and/or Mexico, and there is some subjectivity in our assignment of plants as introduced vs. expanded. Read more in this blog post.
Although this plant occurs somewhere in each of these regions, it may only occur in a small part of some or all of them.
↑Similar Plants
↑Control
Control of tall fescue is largely a cultural problem, as this species is still widely-planted in North America, both as lawns, as a pasturegrass, and as erosion control. Widespread education, lobbying, and perhaps laws may be necessary to halt its intentional use and spread; without that, it will continue to be a problem as its seed will be ubiquitous in the environment.
The approach to controlling this species on a particular site needs to be different based on how it is established and what other vegetation is present. Tall fescue sometimes occurs as isolated clumps in habitats where other species are dominant. In this case, digging out individual clumps can be effective.
When tall fescue occurs as an unwanted grass in a lawn, isolated plants can be dug by hand. However, when it is the dominant grass in a lawn and is unwanted, it can be hard to kill. There are some grasses that tolerate lower mowing than it does (it typically cannot survive mowing much shorter than 2.5 inches), and in this case, seeding these other grasses in and then mowing at a lower height can kill the tall fescue.
↑Links & External Resources
• Tall Fescue | Fire Effects Information System (FEIS) (About This Site)
• Schedonorus arundinaceus (Tall Fescue) | USDA PLANTS Database (About This Site)
• Schedonorus arundinaceus | Go Botany (About This Site)
• Schedonorus arundinaceus | Biota of North America Project (BONAP) (About This Site)
• Schedonorus arundinaceus | NatureServe Explorer (About This Site)
• Schedonorus arundinaceus | Flora of North America (About This Site)
• tall fescue | Missouri Botanical Garden Plant Finder (About This Site)
• Tall Fescue | Maryland Biodiversity Project (About This Site)
• Lolium arundinaceum (Schreb.) Darbysh. (Tall Fescue, Alta Fescue) | Digital Atlas of the Virginia Flora (About This Site)
↑Photo gallery
