Perennial ryegrass is native to Europe, the Middle East, North Africa and eastwards to central Asia.

As a useful species of grass for fodder and grazing livestock, it has been taken by farmers settling in new areas including North America, South Africa and Australia.

With its great ability to set seed, its ease of germination and vigour, it has spread from the fields where it has been planted to roadsides, trackways, footpaths, wasteland, river banks and sand dunes.

In fertile soil, it produces a high grass yield, and in Britain and Ireland, it is frequently sown for short-term ley grassland, often with red or white clover (Trifolium pratense or T. repens).

Since 2001, the courts have been sown with 100% perennial ryegrass to "improve durability and strengthen the sward to withstand better the increasing wear of the modern game".

[5] Italian ryegrass, Lolium multiflorum, differs in the fact that each scale in the spikelet has a long bristle at the top.