Weeds of Australia - Fact Sheet

Top Scientific Name Family Common Names Origin Naturalised Distribution Notes

Scientific Name

Dactylis glomerata L.

Family

Gramineae (South Australia)
Poaceae (Queensland, New South Wales, the ACT, Victoria, Tasmania, Western Australia and the Northern Territory)

Common Names

barnyard grass, cat's grass, cock's foot, cock's-foot, cocksfoot, cocksfoot grass, cocksfootgrass, cockspur, orchard grass, orchardgrass

Origin

Native to northern Africa (i.e. Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia), Europe (i.e. Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, UK, Austria, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands, Poland, Switzerland, Belarus, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Russia, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Italy, Romania, Yugoslavia, France, Portugal and Spain), western Asia, Mongolia, Pakistan and northern India.

Naturalised Distribution

Widely naturalised southern Australia (i.e. in south-eastern Queensland, New South Wales, ACT, Victoria, Tasmania, and the southern parts of South Australia and Western Australia).

Also naturalised on Lord Howe Island and Norfolk Island, and in many other parts of the world (i.e. South Africa, La Réunion, New Zealand, Hawaii, the USA, Central America and South America).

Notes

Cocksfoot (Dactylis glomerata) is regarded as an environmental weed in Victoria, Tasmania, ACT and New South Wales. It has been grown as a pasture grass, but has also spread into disturbed sites and natural plant communities. It is invasive in heathlands, open woodlands, forests, riparian habitats, freshwater wetlands and coastal environs, where it forms dense swards that suppress native grasses and forbs.

For example, it has invaded some low-lying parts of the open woodlands that form the Queanbeyan Nature Reserve in the ACT. This reserve is the only protected habitat of the endangered button wrinklewort (Rutidosis leptorrhynchoides), and cocksfoot (Dactylis glomerata) directly competes with it for space, nutrients, light and moisture.