Avena barbata Brot.   Poaceae (Grass Family)   Europe   Slender Wild Oat      Slender Oat Grass

                               October Photo

Plant Characteristics: Annual; culms slender, 3-6 dm. tall; blades flat, 3-7 mm. wide; panicle narrow to open, mostly rather few-fld. with rather large spikelets, lax; spikelets mostly 2 fld., on curved capillary pedicels; the rachilla bearded, articulating above the glumes and between the florets; glumes subequal, membranaceous or papery, several nerved, longer than the lower floret, usually exceeding the upper floret; lemma indurate except toward the summit, 5-9 nerved, bidentate at apex, with stiff red hairs, the teeth ending in slender setae 4 mm. long.

Habitat:  Common weed in waste places and on open slopes, largely replacing native grasses.  March-June.

Name:  Latin, avena, an old name for oats and barbatus, bearded.  (Jaeger 32,34).

General:  Common the in study area but less common than A. fatua. Photographed on the North Star Flats. There are two small awns terminating the teeth of the lemma, this is the major difference between this species and A. fatua.  One of the photos shows the double awn in the shadow cast by the lemma.  (my comments).     Wild Oats was first reported in Calif. in l885, it has value as a forage plant.  (Robbins et al. 56,57).      The seed is edible but the hairs must be singed off.  The grain can then be ground and used as flour.  (Kirk 180).      A "love potion" from science.  As sex therapist, Fresno psychologist Loretta Haroian has more than an ephemeral interest in aphrodisiacs. Haroian conducted studies with what eventually was proved to be a non-toxic, completely safe "love potion".  Haroian has used the product Existiva, an extract of oats, not a drug or an herb, in her practice and research for several years.  Existiva acts on people like a spring tonic, Haroian said.  "It promotes your general well-being and, as a matter of fact, a dose will replace the jolt of caffeine you get from your coffee.  Besides, it's better for you than coffee."  The product, a white powder to be taken in water or fruit juice is extracted in Switzerland, mixed and assayed in the United States and meets the regulations of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, according to Haroian.  It is sold through mail order, not at health food stores.  Haroian said the idea for such a product surfaced when some Chinese farmers threw some unwanted green oats into a carp pond.  Although carp happen to be the symbol of breeding in the orient, they are lazy fish.  But the farmers observed that the carp, after munching on the green oats, became hyperactive in their breeding behavior.  This was not the first time green oats had been associated with rejuvenation.  Unripened oats were an ingredient in the tonic at a famed health clinic in Zurich, Switzerland.   And Haroian added, it is said that the manna from heaven, mentioned in the Bible, could have been green oats. (Fresno Bee.  February 10, 1988. Section E. p. 1.  No author).         The myth that introduced species are not as well-adapted as natives is perhaps the most difficult for native plant lovers to confront...Some introduced species such as Filaree (Erodium cicutarium) and wild oats (Avena fatua and A. barbata) spread so rapidly upon their arrival in California that it is very difficult to construct a scenario that could ascribe their success to humans.  A. barbata is to all intents and purposes genetically uniform throughout the southern half of the state (from about Monterey south), yet it seems to have spread like wildfire over the region during the decades following the first European settlement in San Diego in 1769, including large areas that were never settled by the Spanish.  A. barbata is much more polymorphic in its native range in the Mediterranean region, suggesting that its monomorphism in southern California resulted from only a single introduction, presumably in the late eighteenth century.  That only a single genotype of a species could be introduced and yet spread to the point of becoming one of the dominants in the vegetation of the state, suggests that it must have been overwhelmingly competitive against natives under a wide range of conditions.  In California and vicinity are numerous near-certain examples of invasion without disturbance; for instance, several Mediterranean species have invaded an ungrazed, apparently undisturbed 100 hectare island in the middle of Pyramid Lake, Nevada.  Study of sites vegetated by a mixture of natives and aliens but ungrazed for decades further indicates that natives often are unable to displace aliens when disturbance ceases, even if abundant native seed pools are present.  Although many California Native Plant Society members will be uncomfortable with these assertions, I do not believe that we can afford to underestimate the very real competitive threat posed by introduced plants under almost all conceivable management strategies.  Blumler, Mark A. "Some Myths About California Grasslands and Grazers". _FREMONTIA, A Journal of the California Native Plant Society  July 1992 22-27).       See Nasella pulchra, for additional information on this subject.      The Miwok, Indians of central California, used A. barbata as soup or mush.  The seeds were pounded lightly in a mortar to loosen the hulls before winnowing, parching and pulverizing.  They were then stone boiled. (Campbell 163).     About 10-15 species of temperate Eurasia.  (Munz, Flora So. Calif. 947).

Text Ref:  Munz, Flora So. Calif. 947; Roberts 45.

Photo Ref:  Feb 1 83 #16A,17A; Oct 1 83 #22.

Identity: by R. De Ruff

First Found:  February 1983.

Computer Ref:  Plant Data 38.

Have plant specimen.

Last edit  11/26/04.  

                                  February Photo                                                                         February Photo