Avena flavescens, L. (Yellow Oat-grass). Loose tufted perennial, pale green, with rounded shoots bursting the sheaths. Leaves flat, slender, soft, fine-ribbed and hairy, especially on the low ridges above. Sheath hairy, especially below, not keeled. Ligule short, obtuse, often truncate, ciliate. A valuable pasture and meadow-grass, also in water-meadows. Its roots are abundant, and it will grow well in calcareous soils (see Fig. [10]).
Avena pubescens, Huds. (Downy Oat-grass). A variety of A. pratensis (see p. [47]), but less densely tufted, and the leaves flat and pubescent, and especially the sheaths very pubescent. Ligule ovate-acute. Shoots flat. Dry districts, and a weed.
Avena flavescens is not easily confounded with any other grass if well grown. All the Poas otherwise like it are glabrous, and without the ridges. The same applies to A. pubescens.
Arrhenatherum is also glabrous, its leaves narrower, its ridges much flatter and broader, and its ligule is hairy outside (see p. [56]).
Brachypodium sylvaticum, Beauv. (Wood False-brome). Rather slender, perennial. Leaves flat and devoid of ridges; long, very thin and dry, limp, slightly tapering below, hirsute. Sheath round, hairy. Ligule fairly long, obtuse, toothed. Copses, &c. Useless.
Brachypodium pinnatum, L. (Heath False-brome), is a species growing in the open, with narrow, firm, rigid, erect leaves, hardly hairy; with distinct ridges, and tending to roll up. Ligule fringed with hair. Open heaths. Useless.
The only grasses likely to be confounded here are the Bromes, and they have entire sheaths.