Festuca maritimaL.

mat-grass fescue

WFO wfo-0000871003 Accepted WFO 2026-06 3 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–c · 2 observations

This species has been photographed under an open licence only 2 times, so some figures below are different views of the same plant, taken on the same day, rather than different individuals. They are usually different parts of it: the leaf, the flower, the bark.

Festuca maritima, photographed by Anton Popovich
fig. a Anton Popovich, CC BY 4.0 / 2018-05-04 / obs. 183368009
Festuca maritima, photographed by Anton Popovich
fig. b Anton Popovich, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 183367791
Festuca maritima, photographed by Bastien Alegot
fig. c Bastien Alegot, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 136272770

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

The specimen a real sheet, in a real collection

Herbarium
Smithsonian, US National Herbarium
Accession
US 3561067
Filed as
Festuca maritima L.
Det. by
Soreng, Robert J., Research Associate (BOT), Smithsonian Institution - National Museum of Natural History (UNITED STATES)
Collected
R. J. Soreng, Y. Akman, O. Ketenoglu & L. Kurt 1991-06-12
Origin
TR
The sheet
View the digitised specimen (CC0 1.0)

A real pressed plant, in a real collection, under the accession number above. Not an illustration of one. The holding institution does not serve this sheet’s image to third parties, so there is no photograph here. The record is real and the link goes to it. Where we hold no openly licensed sheet for a species this section is simply absent, and where a sheet never recorded who determined it, that field stays empty rather than being filled in. Roughly half of all herbarium sheets never recorded a determiner, which is ordinary.

Native range 29 botanical countries

Regions where Festuca maritima is native: Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Lebanon-Syria, North Caucasus, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Tadzhikistan, Transcaucasus, Türkiye, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, West Himalaya, Belgium, Bulgaria, Corse, France, Great Britain, Greece, Italy, Krym, NW. Balkan Pen., Sardegna, Spain, Switzerland AlgeriaMoroccoTunisiaAfghanistanIranIraqKazakhstanLebanon-SyriaNorth CaucasusPalestineSaudi ArabiaTadzhikistanTranscaucasusTürkiyeTurkmenistanUzbekistanWest HimalayaBelgiumBulgariaCorseFranceGreeceItalyKrymNW. Balkan Pen.SpainSwitzerland Sardegna
Native distribution of Festuca maritima, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows. Regions too small to draw at this scale are marked with a dot.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Afghanistan AFG ASIA-TEMPERATE
Iran IRN
Iraq IRQ
Kazakhstan KAZ
Lebanon-Syria LBS
North Caucasus NCS
Palestine PAL
Saudi Arabia SAU
Tadzhikistan TZK
Transcaucasus TCS
Türkiye TUR
Turkmenistan TKM
Uzbekistan UZB
Belgium BGM EUROPE
Bulgaria BUL
Corse COR
France FRA
Great Britain GRB
Greece GRC
Italy ITA
Krym KRY
NW. Balkan Pen. YUG
Sardegna SAR
Spain SPA
Switzerland SWI
Algeria ALG AFRICA
Morocco MOR
Tunisia TUN
West Himalaya WHM ASIA-TROPICAL

Not drawn on the map: Great Britain. We hold no public-domain boundary for this region, so it is listed rather than guessed at.

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Also published as 81 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Agropyron hispanicum (Reichard) C.Presl
  • Agropyron nardus Chevall.
  • Agropyron unilaterale (L.) P.Beauv.
  • Brachypodium biunciale (Vill.) Roem. & Schult.
  • Brachypodium hispanicum (Reichard) Rchb.
  • Brachypodium montanum (Boiss. & Reut.) Nyman
  • Brachypodium psilanthum Link
  • Brachypodium psilanthum Link
  • Brachypodium tenellum var. tenuiculum J.Woods
  • Brachypodium tenuiflorum (Schrad.) Roem. & Schult.
  • Brachypodium unilaterale (L.) P.Beauv.
  • Brachypodium unilaterale var. tenuiflorus (Schrad.) Nyman
  • Catapodium halleri var. aristatum (Tausch) Gaut.
  • Catapodium montanum (Boiss. & Reut.) M.Laínz
  • Catapodium tenellum var. aristatum (Tausch) Maire
  • Catapodium unilaterale (L.) Griseb.
  • Festuca divaricata Sieber ex Steud.
  • Festuca krausei Regel
  • Festuca lolioides Trin. ex Steud.
  • Festuca maritima var. psilurus Mutel
  • Festuca poa var. aristata (Tausch) Coss.
  • Festuca smithii Kunth
  • Festuca tenella var. aristata Mutel
  • Festuca tenuiflora Schrad.

and 57 more.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. USDA PLANTS Database. common name, checklist symbol VUUN. public domain. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
  4. Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.