Israel native plants: Reed Foxtail

Alopecurus arundinaceus, Alopecurus ventricosus, Reed Foxtail, Creeping Foxtail, Creeping Meadow Foxtail,

Hebrew: זנב-שועל ביצתי, Arabic: الثعلبية القصبية

Scientific name:   Alopecurus arundinaceus Poir.
Synonym name:   Alopecurus ventricosus Pers.
Common name:   Reed Foxtail, Creeping Foxtail, Creeping Meadow Foxtail
Hebrew name:   זנב-שועל ביצתי
Arabic name:   الثعلبية القصبية
Family:   Graminea (Poaceae), Grass Family, משפחת הדגניים


Life form:   Hemicryptophyte
Stems:   culms 30-110 cm high, erect, not rooting from the nodes
Leaves:   Alternate, entire
Flowers:   Panicle 2-9 cm long, 8-13 mm wide, broadly cylindrical. Spikelets 4-6 mm long; glumes acute, slightly to markedly divergent at the tips, connate for a quarter their length, wingless, the keel and nerves covered with silky hairs up to 2 mm long; lemma usually longer than the glumes, sometimes ± equalling them, slightly to markedly obliquely truncate, the margins connate for a third their length; awn exceeding the tip of the lemma by up to 5 mm, but ,often included in the glumes; anthers 2-3.5 mm long
Fruits:   Fruit – caryopsis, Caryopsis ellipsoid, longitudinally grooved, hilum long-linear
Flowering Period:   March, April
Habitat:   Humid ground, riverbanks
Distribution:   Mediterranean Woodlands and Shrublands, Semi-steppe shrublands, Montane vegetation of Mt. Hermon
Chorotype, טיפוס התפוצה:   Euro-Siberian – Med – Irano-Turanian
Summer shedding:   Perennating


Derivation of the botanical name:

Alopecurus, Greek αλωπεκουροϛ, alopecuros a fox’s tail.

arundinaceus, Arundo, read, cane; things made from reeds or shaped like a reed; resembling a reed.
The Hebrew word: זנב-שועל, zanav-shual , a tranlation from the scientific name Alopecuros, a fox’s tail.

  • The standard author abbreviation Poir. is used to indicate Jean Louis Marie Poiret (1755 – 1834), a French clergyman, botanist and explorer.
  • The standard author abbreviation Pers. is used to indicate Christiaan Hendrik Persoon (1761 – 1836), a mycologist, born in South Africa, who donated his herbarium to the House of Orange, in return for an adequate pension for life.