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Avena fatua
| Common name: |
Wild Oats |
Family: |
Gramineae |
| Author: |
L. |
Botanical references: |
17 |
| Synonyms: |
|
| Known Hazards: |
None known |
| Range: |
Europe to Asia. Naturalized in Britain[17]. |
| Habitat: |
A common weed of arable land and waste ground[1, 57]. |
| Edibility Rating (1-5): |
2 | Medicinal Rating (1-5): | 1 |
| Other Possible Synonyms: | From various places across the web, may not be correct. See below. |
| A. byzantina[B,G,P]
A. byzantina var. anopla[G]
A. diffusa var. segetalis[G]
A. diffusa var. volgensis[G]
A. fatua var. glabrata[B,G,P]
A. fatua var. glabrescens[G]
A. fatua var. sativa[B,P]
A. fatua var. vilis[B,P]
A. hybrida[B,P]
A. orientalis[G]
A. sativa[B,C,DUTCH,ENERGY,E,G,H,HPIC,L,Sn7,P]
A. sativa var. aristata[G]
A. sativa var. brunnea[G]
A. sativa var. cinerea[G]
A. sativa var. diffusa[G]
A. sativa var. eligulata[G]
A. sativa var. flava[G]
A. sativa var. grisea[G]
A. sativa var. inermis[G]
A. sativa var. ligulata[G]
A. sativa var. montana[G]
A. sativa var. mutica[G]
A. sativa var. nigra[G]
A. sativa var. obtusata[G]
A. sativa var. orientalis[B,G,P]
A. sativa var. pugnax[G]
A. sativa var. segetalis[G]
A. sativa var. tristis[G]
A. volgensis[G]
|
| Other Common Names: | From various places around the Web, may not be correct. See below. |
| Avena [E], Ch'Iao Mai [E], Common Oat [L,P], Cultivated Oat [L], Cultivated Oats [S], Dousar [E], Haver [D], Oat [B], Oatmeal [E], Oats [H,S,E], Oats, Wild [S], Oot [D], Wild Oat [B,P], Wild Oats [H,S], Wild-oat [L], Wildoat [E], Yen Mai [E], Yulaf [E], |
| Systematics: | From a USDA
Plants Database |
|
Order: Cyperales. Renamed to Poaceae -- Grass family
|
| Other Range Info: |
From the Ethnobotany Database |
|
Britain; Britain(Wales); Chile; China; Europe; Iraq; Spain; Turkey; Us
|
| Noxious, Invasive and Injurious Weeds | From USDA
PLANTS database, Weeds Australia
, DEFRA Injurious Weeds | | Listed as noxious/invasive for: Minnesota. |
Physical Characteristics
Annual growing to 1.5m. It is not frost tender. It is in flower from June to July, and the seeds ripen from August to October. The flowers are hermaphrodite (have both male and female organs) and are pollinated by Wind.
We rate it 2/5 for edibility and
1/5 for medicinal use.
The plant prefers light (sandy), medium (loamy) and heavy (clay) soils, requires well-drained soil and can grow in heavy clay and nutritionally poor soils.
The plant prefers acid, neutral and basic (alkaline) soils and can grow in very acid soil.
It cannot grow in the shade.
It requires dry or moist soil and can tolerate drought.
Habitats and Possible Locations
Cultivated Beds.Edible Uses
Coffee; Seed.
Seed - cooked[2, 46, 61, 85, 95, 161]. The seed ripens in the latter
half of summer and, when harvested and dried, can store for several years. It
has a floury texture and a mild, somewhat creamy flavour. It can be used as a
staple food crop in either savoury or sweet dishes. The seed can be cooked
whole, though it is more commonly ground into a flour and used as a cereal in
all the ways that oats are used, especially as a porridge but also to make
biscuits, sourdough bread etc. The seed can also be sprouted and eaten raw or
cooked in salads, stews etc.
The roasted seed is a coffee substitute.
Medicinal Uses
Disclaimer
Diuretic; Emollient; Refrigerant.
The seeds are diuretic, emollient and refrigerant[240].
Other Uses
Fibre; Mulch; Paper; Thatching.
The straw has a wide range of uses such as for bio-mass, fibre, mulch,
paper-making and thatching[171]. Some caution is advised in its use as a
mulch since oat straw can infest strawberries with stem and bulb eelworm.
Cultivation details
Succeeds in any moderately fertile soil in full sun[200]. Prefers a
poor dry soil[134]. Tolerates a pH in the range 4.5 to 6.5.
A parent of the cultivated oat, A. sativa[57, 171] but the seeds are
somewhat smaller and yields lower. This species could be of importance in
breeding programmes for the cultivated oats (A. sativa), where it could
confer drought tolerance, disease resistance and higher yields.
Oats are in general easily grown plants but, especially when grown on a
small scale, the seed is often completely eaten out by birds. Some sort of
netting seems to be the best answer on a garden scale.
Propagation
Seed - sow in situ in early spring or in the autumn. Only just cover
the seed. Germination should take place within 2 weeks.
Suppliers
For more details of plant suppliers please see our Suppliers Page which lists many more places to look.
Web References
- [H] Details of Scandanavian and European Common names in Henriette's names database
- [E] Ethnobotany Data
(common names, uses, countries) from the Ethnobotany Database.
- [B] Data
(Latin & Common names, other references) from the BONAP's Synonymized Checklist of the Vascular Flora of the United States, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands.
- [S] Image
from the Southwest School of Botanical Medicine
- [S] SW USA Dist. Maps
from the Southwest School of Botanical Medicine
- [S] Image
from the Southwest School of Botanical Medicine
- [C] Taxon data.
from the CalFlora database.
- Images
from the CalPhoto database.
- [G] Data
(Common Names, Uses, Distribution) from the USDA/ARS NPGS's GRIN taxonomic database.
- [P] Data.
(uses, distribution, wetland) from the USDA'a Plants database.
- [HP] Links, Photos, Suppliers from Hortiplex Plant Database
References for Avena sativa (a possible synonym).
- [H] Details of Scandanavian and European Common names in Henriette's names database
- [E] Ethnobotany Data
(common names, uses, countries) from the Ethnobotany Database.
- [B] Data
(Latin & Common names, other references) from the BONAP's Synonymized Checklist of the Vascular Flora of the United States, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands.
- [S] Image
from the Southwest School of Botanical Medicine
- [PHARM] Phytochemical Data
(common names, uses, countries) from Dr Duke's Phytochemical Database.
- [FAO] Data
(Description, Habitat, Location and Use) from the FAO's Grassland Index.
- [G] Data
(Common Names, Uses, Distribution) from the USDA/ARS NPGS's GRIN taxonomic database.
- [P] Data.
(uses, distribution, wetland) from the USDA'a Plants database.
- [V] Images
from the Vascular Plant Image Gallery of the Texas A&M Bioinformatics Working Group.
- [HEC] Use, Folk Medicine, etc. from Handbook of Energy Crops by James Duke
References for avena fatua (a possible synonym).
References for avena sativa (a possible synonym).
See the PFAF Links Pages for other sources.
Also try Photos and info from the The Plants Database which has 14,000 images.
[1] F. Chittendon. RHS Dictionary of Plants plus Supplement. 1956 Oxford University Press 1951
Comprehensive listing of species and how to grow them. Somewhat outdated, it has been replaces in 1992 by a new dictionary (see [200]).
[2] Hedrick. U. P. Sturtevant's Edible Plants of the World. Dover Publications 1972 ISBN 0-486-20459-6
Lots of entries, quite a lot of information in most entries and references.
[17] Clapham, Tootin and Warburg. Flora of the British Isles. Cambridge University Press 1962
A very comprehensive flora, the standard reference book but it has no pictures.
[46] Uphof. J. C. Th. Dictionary of Economic Plants. Weinheim 1959
An excellent and very comprehensive guide but it only gives very short descriptions of the uses without any details of how to utilize the plants. Not for the casual reader.
[57] Schery. R. W. Plants for Man.
Fairly readable but not very comprehensive. Deals with plants from around the world.
[61] Usher. G. A Dictionary of Plants Used by Man. Constable 1974 ISBN 0094579202
Forget the sexist title, this is one of the best books on the subject. Lists a very extensive range of useful plants from around the world with very brief details of the uses. Not for the casual reader.
[85] Harrington. H. D. Edible Native Plants of the Rocky Mountains. University of New Mexico Press 1967 ISBN 0-8623-0343-9
A superb book. Very readable, it gives the results of the authors experiments with native edible plants.
[95] Saunders. C. F. Edible and Useful Wild Plants of the United States and Canada. Dover Publications 1976 ISBN 0-486-23310-3
Useful wild plants of America. A pocket guide.
[134] Rice. G. (Editor) Growing from Seed. Volume 2. Thompson and Morgan. 1988
Very readable magazine with lots of information on propagation. An interesting article on Ensete ventricosum.
[161] Yanovsky. E. Food Plants of the N. American Indians. Publication no. 237. U.S. Depf of Agriculture.
A comprehensive but very terse guide. Not for the casual reader.
[171] Hill. A. F. Economic Botany. The Maple Press 1952
Not very comprehensive, but it is quite readable and goes into some a bit of detail about the plants it does cover.
[200] Huxley. A. The New RHS Dictionary of Gardening. 1992. MacMillan Press 1992 ISBN 0-333-47494-5
Excellent and very comprehensive, though it contains a number of silly mistakes. Readable yet also very detailed.
[240] Chopra. R. N., Nayar. S. L. and Chopra. I. C. Glossary of Indian Medicinal Plants (Including the Supplement). Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, New Delhi. 1986
Very terse details of medicinal uses of plants with a wide range of references and details of research into the plants chemistry. Not for the casual reader.
Readers Comments
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Plant information taken from the
Plants For A Future -
Species Database.
Copyright (c) 1997-2003.
WEB search engine by Rich Morris - Home Page- Contact Info
Blagdon Cross, Ashwater, Beaworthy, Devon, EX21 5DF, UK.
Website: www.pfaf.org Phone: 0845 458 4719/_44(0) 1208 872963 This page (UK) http://www.comp.leeds.ac.uk/cgi-bin/pfaf/arr_html?Avena+fatua
This page (US) http://www.ibiblio.org/pfaf/cgi-bin/arr_html?Avena+fatua
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