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Agrostis nebulosa (cloud grass) is a rare annual grass native to Portugal, Spain and North Africa. As an ornamental plant it is often cultivated for its light, delicate heads that are used dried in floristry. As a garden plant it is recommended for open, sunny positions in USDA hardiness zones 5–7, where it may self-seed if suited.

Description
Habit: annual herb. Culms (stems) erect, or rising with knee-like bends, to 25–50 cm tall; glabrous (smooth); with 2–3 nodes. Leaf-sheaths slightly rough, but smooth-surfaced. Leaves with a 2–3 mm ligule, oblong, blunt-toothed, leaf-blade 3–10 cm × 1–3 mm or 3.5 mm wide, flat, with a rough surface. Inflorescence: an open, ovate panicle, 12–20 cm long × 6–10 wide; lax and diffuse, much branched and subdivided, main branches dividing 10–15 times, whorled at most nodes, pedicels almost smooth. Spikelets solitary; fertile spikelets held on clavate (noticeably thicker at the apex) pedicels, 5–12 long, 2–7 times longer than the spikelets. Fertile spikelets: spikelets elliptic, 1–1.7 mm, laterally compressed (flattened), comprising 1 fertile floret, without rhachilla extension. They break up when mature, falling apart below each fertile floret, leaving a smooth callus. Glumes persistent, similar, exceeding the apex of the florets; firmer than the fertile lemma they are shiny and gaping. Both upper and lower glumes are lanceolate, 1.3–1.7 long; apex obtuse or subacute, with scarious (thin, dry, membranaceous) margin, a single vein and a single keel, with some bristles. Florets: fertile lemma elliptic, 0.4–0.6 or 0.8 mm, up to one third the length of the glumes, truncate-toothed, with 5 lateral veins almost reaching apex, glabrous, usually muticous (without an awn, spine or point), rarely with a dorsal ridge of 2 mm, geniculate (knee-like), and inserted near the base. Palea at least two thirds the length of the lemma; hyaline (glassy; transparent). Flower: with two lodicules and three Anthers, c. 1 mm long. Flowering in June–July. Fruit: a caryopsis 1 × 0.4 mm, transversely rough. Hilum linear.

Distribution and habitat
A rare species, it is found in grasslands at higher elevations in the Iberian Peninsula and North Africa.

As an introduction it has been found growing in the wild in Argentina (1926), north-eastern Canada (1908) and several times in the western United States of America (1877, 1889 etc).

Taxonomy
Agrostis nebulosa was described by Boiss. & Reut. and published in Diagnoses Plantarum Novarum Hispanicarum 26. 1842. Number of chromosomes of Agrostis nebulosa (Fam. Gramineae) and infraspecific taxa: n=7+1B
 * Cytology:
 * Etymology:
 * Agrostis: generic name derived from Greek agrostis = (a forage plant or sort of grass), cf. agros = (a field).
 * nebulosa: epithet derived from Latin meaning "cloudy"; (also "resembling mist; vaporous; misty, foggy").
 * Synonymy:
 * Neoschischkinia nebulosa (Boiss. & Reut.) Tzvelev
 * Agrostis capillaris hort non L.
 * Agrostis elegans Thore

Common names

 * English: cloud grass, ornamental cloud grass
 * Spanish (Castilian): algarabía, algarabías, barreplatos, barresantos, ceacilla, ceacillo, ceacinas, cecilia, ciacillo, ciacina, cosquillinas, escoba barresantos, escobas de polvillo, escobilla, escobillas, heno, mijo, plumeros, polvillo, vallico.