Avena strigosa
Schreb.
Bristle oats, Meagre oat, Sand oat
(c) Valter Jacinto, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC-SA)
(c) Biopix, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)
(c) Valentin Hamon, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC), uploaded by Valentin Hamon
What to Eat
Edible parts: Seed
Edible Parts: Seed Edible Uses: Coffee Seed - cooked. 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.
Where to Find It
Seeds, Cereal,
How to Identify
A hardy annual oat reaching 0.9 m tall, flowering June to July with seed maturation August to October. Wind-pollinated hermaphroditic plant. Tolerates light sandy, medium loamy, and heavy clay soils including nutritionally poor conditions. Suitable for mildly acid, neutral, and basic soils. Requires full sun and adapts to dry or moist conditions with good drought tolerance.
How to Grow
Succeeds in any moderately fertile soil in full sun. Prefers a poor dry soil. Occasionally cultivated for its edible seed, especially in wetter and cooler climates such as Wales, Scotland and Ireland, it is lower yielding than A. sativa and considered to be no more than a weed in many areas. The smallness of its grain renders it unfit for cultivation in any but poor mountainous soils. It could, however, be of value in any breeding programme for the cultivated oats. 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.
Medicinal Uses
None known
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. Some caution is advised in its use as a mulch since oat straw can infest strawberries with stem and bulb eelworm. Special Uses
Wikipedia
Source ↗Avena strigosa (also called lopsided oat, bristle oat or black oat; syn. Avena hispanica Ard.) is a species of grass native to Europe. It has edible seeds and is often cultivated as animal feed in southern Brazil. It is sometimes reported as a weed.
Other Information
Poaceae
Notes
An annual grass. It has a waxy covering. It grows 1.2 m high. The spikelets have prickly points. Seeds are very small. They are 3-4 mm long.
References (8)
- Bircher, A. G. & Bircher, W. H., 2000, Encyclopedia of Fruit Trees and Edible Flowering Plants in Egypt and the Subtropics. AUC Press. p 49
- Curtis, W.M., & Morris, D.I., 1994, The Student's Flora of Tasmania. Part 4B St David's Park Publishing, Tasmania, p 237
- Hussey, B.M.J., Keighery, G.J., Cousens, R.D., Dodd, J., Lloyd, S.G., 1997, Western Weeds. A guide to the weeds of Western Australia. Plant Protection Society of Western Australia. p 44
- Paczkowska, G. & Chapman, A.R., 2000, The Western Australian Flora. A Descriptive Catalogue. Western Australian Herbarium. p 98
- Plants for a Future database, The Field, Penpol, Lostwithiel, Cornwall, PL22 0NG, UK. http://www.scs.leeds.ac.uk/pfaf/
- Spic. fl. lips. 52. 1771
- Tasmanian Herbarium Vascular Plants list p 82
- Zeven, A. C. & de West, J. M. J., 1982, Dictionary of cultivated plants and their regions of diversity. Wageningen. p 108
