Festuca elata Seeds | Tall Fescue
LATIN NAME: Festuca elata
COMMON NAME: Tall Fescue
Plant Profile
Festuca elata is a tall, clumping fescue of the family Poaceae, native to the grasslands of central and south-western China, where it grows on moist slopes and at forest edges. It reaches sixty to a hundred and twenty centimetres, with broad, dark green blades and an open panicle of awned spikelets in early summer.
It is the Chinese counterpart of the European tall fescue and is easily confused with it: the two differ in the hairiness of the ovary and in the arrangement of the panicle branches, details that need a hand lens. The plant is deep-rooted and long-lived, and it stays green through the summer heat that browns other cool-season grasses.
Science & Biotechnology
Festuca elata has been used in Chinese turf breeding for the transition zone, the belt where summers are too hot for ryegrass and winters too cold for Bermuda grass. Its summer survival, its resistance to leaf spot and its tolerance of poor, compacted soil have made it a parent of several turf cultivars, and it is crossed with European tall fescue to combine heat tolerance with finer texture.
Tall fescues in general carry an endophyte, a fungus that grows between the cells and produces alkaloids that deter insects and improve persistence. The wild endophyte also makes ergovaline, which causes fescue toxicosis in grazing animals, and cultivars are now sold either endophyte-free or with a selected strain that gives insect protection without the toxin. Festuca elata has been screened for both types.
Uses & Benefits
It is used as a turf grass for lawns, sports fields and roadsides in central and southern China, where it holds up in summer better than ryegrass. It is also cut for hay and grazed in the hill country, and it is sown on banks and around reservoirs for erosion control.
In a garden it makes a tough, dark green clump for a dry bank or the edge of a meadow, and it can be used as a mown path or a rough lawn where water is scarce. It is coarser than the fine fescues and should not be used for a bowling green. Its seed heads are handsome in early summer and are worth leaving for the birds.
Growing from Seed
Sow in early autumn or early spring at twenty-five to thirty-five grams per square metre for turf, or fifteen kilograms per hectare for forage, at a depth of one centimetre. The seedlings appear in ten to fourteen days at 15-22 °C.
Keep the surface moist until the seedlings are established, then water deeply and less often to encourage deep roots. Mow at five to seven centimetres and do not cut more than a third of the leaf at a time. In a dry summer the plant survives without irrigation, though it will brown off; it greens again with autumn rain.
Our Take
The Chinese tall fescue: coarser than the European form, and better at surviving a hot, dry summer. Sow it for turf and hard ground.
Related Reading
If Tall Fescue appeals to you, these related plants are worth a look: