Gaudinia fragilis(L.) P.Beauv.

fragile oat

WFO wfo-0000872903 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 5 observations

This species has been photographed under an open licence only 5 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.

Gaudinia fragilis, photographed by Drepanostoma
fig. a Drepanostoma, CC BY 4.0 / 2012-06-05 / obs. 171843897
Gaudinia fragilis, photographed by Tim Johnson
fig. b Tim Johnson, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 202887759
Gaudinia fragilis, photographed by Nina Kerr
fig. c Nina Kerr, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 105862905
Gaudinia fragilis, photographed by Yves Bas
fig. d Yves Bas, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 139234887
Gaudinia fragilis, photographed by Yves Bas
fig. e Yves Bas, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 139235118
Gaudinia fragilis, photographed by Tim Johnson
fig. f Tim Johnson, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 202887768
Gaudinia fragilis, photographed by Nina Kerr
fig. g Nina Kerr, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 105862894
Gaudinia fragilis, photographed by Bastien Alegot
fig. h Bastien Alegot, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 132945970

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 3717132
Filed as
Gaudinia fragilis (L.) P.Beauv.
Det. by
Soreng, Robert J., Research Associate (BOT), Smithsonian Institution - National Museum of Natural History (UNITED STATES)
Collected
L. J. Gillespie, E. Cabi, R. J. Soreng & K. Boudko 2011-06-16
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 23 botanical countries

Regions where Gaudinia fragilis is native: Algeria, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia, East Aegean Is., Lebanon-Syria, Palestine, Türkiye, Albania, Baleares, Bulgaria, Corse, France, Italy, Kriti, Krym, NW. Balkan Pen., Portugal, Sardegna, Sicilia, Spain, Switzerland, Türkiye-in-Europe AlgeriaLibyaMoroccoTunisiaEast Aegean Is.Lebanon-SyriaPalestineTürkiyeAlbaniaBulgariaCorseFranceItalyKritiKrymNW. Balkan Pen.PortugalSiciliaSpainSwitzerlandTürkiye-in-Europe BalearesSardegna
Native distribution of Gaudinia fragilis, 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
Albania ALB EUROPE
Baleares BAL
Bulgaria BUL
Corse COR
France FRA
Italy ITA
Kriti KRI
Krym KRY
NW. Balkan Pen. YUG
Portugal POR
Sardegna SAR
Sicilia SIC
Spain SPA
Switzerland SWI
Türkiye-in-Europe TUE
Algeria ALG AFRICA
Libya LBY
Morocco MOR
Tunisia TUN
East Aegean Is. EAI ASIA-TEMPERATE
Lebanon-Syria LBS
Palestine PAL
Türkiye TUR

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.

Where it actually grows measured, from 144 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -1.0 °C 4.6 °C 13.5 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 20.8 °C 24.9 °C 32.2 °C
Annual rainfall 603 mm 846 mm 1,705 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 6 mm 134 mm 216 mm

It is found where winters bring light frost. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 144 research-grade observations of Gaudinia fragilis that carry a coordinate, and this is the range those places actually span. The 5th and 95th percentiles are used rather than the minimum and maximum, because a single cultivated specimen in a heated conservatory should not widen a tropical plant's range to the Arctic.

This is not a hardiness zone. A USDA zone is the average annual extreme minimum temperature. The figure above is the mean daily minimum of the coldest month, which is a different quantity and is typically far warmer. Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one.

Also published as 32 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.

  • Avena fragilis L.
  • Cylichnium fragile (L.) Dulac
  • Gaudinia affinis Gand.
  • Gaudinia avenacea P.Beauv.
  • Gaudinia bicolor Gand.
  • Gaudinia biloba Gand.
  • Gaudinia castellana Gand.
  • Gaudinia colorata Gand.
  • Gaudinia conferta Gand.
  • Gaudinia eriantha Gand.
  • Gaudinia filiformis Albert
  • Gaudinia fragilis var. brevispica Albert
  • Gaudinia fragilis var. filiformis (Albert) Nyman
  • Gaudinia fragilis var. glabriglumis Ronniger
  • Gaudinia fragilis var. linearis Albert
  • Gaudinia fragilis var. nardoides Albert
  • Gaudinia fragilis var. nardoides Albert
  • Gaudinia fragilis var. pubescens Lojac.
  • Gaudinia fragilis var. verticicola Rivas Mart. & A.Galán
  • Gaudinia fragilis var. villosa Maire
  • Gaudinia gracilescens Gand.
  • Gaudinia multiculmis Gand.
  • Gaudinia neglecta Gand.
  • Gaudinia orientalis Gand.

and 8 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. Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. 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.