Yellow Foxtail, Setaria pumila, Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden.

	Grasses of the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden
	Common Name	Scientific Name	Plant Family	Garden Location	Height	Prime Season
	Yellow Foxtail	Setaria pumila (Poir.) Roem. & Schult. ssp. pumila	Poaceae (Grasses)	Upland	.5 to 4 feet	July to September
	Native Status	Yellow Foxtail or Pearl Millet, is a non-native European grass that is spread throughout the United States and the lower Canadian Provinces. It is widespread in Minnesota.
Notes	Yellow Foxtail is an annual grass with erect or low-lying stems, growing from fibrous roots in open places and in cultivated areas. It is generally considered weedy and unwanted. Leaf blades are up to 1/2" wide (12mm) and up to 10" (25cm) long. Blades can be flat or V-shaped, twisted, drooping, distinctly veined, slight rough to smooth on upper and lower surfaces and with long twisted hairs near the base of the upper surface. Blades of ssp. pumila are yellowish-green. The flowering head is tightly packed cylindrical shape containing the spikelets, which have bristles and the bristles on the spikelets of ssp. pumila are yellow and 3 to 3.4mm long. The other major subspecies, ssp. pallidefusca, has reddish bristles and the spikelets are 2 to 2.5mm long, but that subspecies is not found in this area.


Above and top left: Mature seed heads of Yellow Foxtail. Photos ©Phoebe Waugh.	Above: Drawing of Yellow Foxtail courtesy USDA-NRCS PLANTS Database / Hitchcock, A.S. (rev. A. Chase). 1950. Manual of the grasses of the United States. USDA Miscellaneous Publication No. 200. Washington, DC.
Below: A plant specimen of Yellow Foxtail, photo ©Anna Gardner, Iowa State University.	Below: Detail of the flowering head of Yellow Foxtail prior to maturity. Photo ©Patrick J. Alexander, USDA-NRCS Plants Database.

Notes: This grass is indigenous to the Garden. Eloise Butler catalogued it in her early Garden records.

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References: Plant characteristics are generally from sources 28c, W2, W3, W5 & W6. Distribution principally from W2 and W1. Planting history generally from 1, 4 & 4a. Other sources by specific reference. See Reference List for details.

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