VARIOUS-LEAVED FESCUE. Ti 
VARIOUS-LEAVED FESCUE (Festuca heterophylla Lam.) 
Botanical description: Various-leaved Fescue is perennial, 
forming dense tufts. The stems, which are from two to four feet 
high, are thin and weak. They are surrounded at their base by 
leafy shoots, which arise from buds within the sheaths of old leaves 
and appear from their mouth as in Sheep’s Fescue. The shoots are, 
however, much more numerous than in the latter. The leaves are 
very long, permanently rolled up and bristle-like, but soft in texture. 
The leaves of the stems are at first folded and bristly, like those of 
the basal shoots, but they soon become flat and look very different. 
This is why the plant is called Various-leaved Fescue. The flowers 
are in a panicle which is often nodding at the top and generally 
larger and more open than those of Sheep’s and Hard Fescue. Each 
spikelet contains three to nine flowers, which have awns half or quite 
as long as the glumes that carry them. 
Geographical distribution: Various-leaved Fescue is a native 
of southern Europe. In Asia it is indigenous in the Caucasus and 
Himalayas. 
Habitat: It grows naturally in open woods and along their 
borders. 
Cultural conditions: It prefers low-lying land where sufficient 
moisture is available, though it is able to stand considerable drought 
provided the soil is not too poor and sandy. 
Agricultural value: It gives the heaviest yield the second year 
after sowing and when old develops into cushion-like tufts several 
inches high. It is a rather good pasture grass for woodland parks 
where the soil is not sandy. It prefers shaded localities to open 
fields. 
Seed: The commercial supply is collected from wild plants 
living in woods. The seed is similar to that of Red Fescue, but 
usually a little larger. 
Good pasture makes fat sheep.—Shakespeare, As You Like It, Act 3, Sc. II., 1601. 
In the Fabian district - * where they are in the habit of irrigating the fields, = S 
it is a very singular thing that the water kills all the weeds, while at the same time it nourishes the corn, 
thus acting in place of the weeding hook.—Pliny, Natural History, 23-79. 
