Elymus canadensis |
Elymus glaucus |
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Canada wild rye, Canadian wild rye, Great Plains wild-rye, élyme du Canada |
blue or western wild-rye, blue wild-rye, common western wildrye |
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Habit | Plants loosely cespitose, rarely with rhizomes to 4 cm long and 1-2 mm thick, often glaucous. | Plants densely to loosely cespitose, sometimes weakly rhizomatous, often glaucous. | ||||||||||||||||
Culms | (40)60-150(180) cm, erect or decumbent; nodes 4-10, mostly concealed by the leaf sheaths, glabrous. |
30-140 cm, erect or slightly decumbent; nodes 4-7, mostly exposed, usually glabrous, sometimes puberulent. |
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Leaves | evenly distributed; sheaths smooth or scabridulous, glabrous or hirsute, often reddish brown; auricles 1.5-4 mm, brown or purplish black; ligules to 1(2) mm, truncate, ciliolate; blades (3)4-15(20) mm wide, usually firm, often ascending and somewhat involute, usually dull green, drying to grayish, adaxial surfaces usually smooth or scabridulous and glabrous, rarely sparsely hispid to villous. |
evenly distributed; sheaths scabrous or smooth, glabrous or, particularly those of the lower leaves, retrorsely puberulent to hirsute, often purplish; auricles usually present, to 2.5 mm, often purplish; ligules to 1 mm, truncate, erose-ciliolate or entire; blades 2-13(17) mm wide, usually lax, sometimes slightly involute, adaxial surfaces glabrous, scabrous, or strigose on the veins, sometimes pilose to villous. |
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Spikes | 6-30 cm long, 3-7 cm wide, usually nodding, sometimes pendent or almost erect, usually with 2(3) spikelets per node, occasionally to 5 at some nodes, rarely with 1 at some nodes but never throughout; internodes (2)3-5(7) mm long, or 5-10 mm long towards the base, 0.2-0.35 mm thick at the thinnest sections, glabrous or with a few hairs below the spikelets. |
5-21 cm long, (0.2)0.5-2 cm wide, erect to slightly nodding, rarely somewhat pendent, usually with 2 spikelets per node, sometimes with 1 at all or most nodes, rarely with 3 at some nodes; internodes 4-8(12) mm long, 0.15-0.5 mm thick at the thinnest sections, angles scabrous, glabrous below the spikelets. |
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Spikelets | 12-20 mm excluding the awns, more or less divergent, with (2)3-5(7) florets, lowest florets functional; disarticulation usually above the glumes and beneath each floret, rarely also below the glumes. |
8-25 mm, sometimes purplish at higher latitudes and elevations, appressed to slightly divergent, with (1)2-4(6) florets, lowest florets functional; disarticulation above the glumes and beneath each floret. |
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Glumes | usually equal, occasionally subequal, 11-40 mm including the awns, the basal 0-1 mm subterete and slightly indurate, glume bodies 6-13 mm long, 0.5-1.6 mm wide, linear-lanceolate to subsetaceous, entire, widening or parallel-sided above the base, 3-5-veined, glabrous to scabrous-ciliate, rarely villous on the veins, margins firm, awns (5)10-25(27) mm, straight to outcurving; lemmas 8-15 mm, glabrous, scabrous, hispid, or uniformly villous with the hairs generally appressed, awns (10)15-40(50) mm, moderately to strongly outcurving, often contorted at the spike bases; paleas 7-13 mm, acute, usually bidentate; anthers 2-3.5 mm. |
subequal, 3/4 as long as or equaling the adjacent lemmas, bases often overlapping, usually flat and thin with evident venation, glume bodies (6)9-14(19) mm long, 0.6-1.5(2) mm wide, linear-lanceolate, entire, widening above the base, (1)3-5(7)-veined, 2-3 veins extending to the apices, glabrous, veins smooth or evenly scabrous, margins 0.1-0.2 mm wide, whitish hyaline, tapering towards the apices, unawned or awned, awns to 5(9) mm, straight; lemmas (8)9-14(16) mm, glabrous, scabrous, or short-hirsute, awns (0)1-30(35) mm, usually straight to flexuous, sometimes slightly curving; paleas 7-13 mm, keels straight or slightly concave, usually scabrous to ciliate, apices often bidentate; anthers 1.5-3.5 mm. |
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Anthesis | May to July. |
from May to July. |
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2n | = 28, rarely 42. |
= 28. |
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Elymus canadensis |
Elymus glaucus |
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Distribution |
AR; AZ; CA; CO; CT; DC; DE; IA; ID; IL; IN; KS; KY; MA; MD; ME; MI; MN; MO; MT; NC; ND; NE; NH; NJ; NM; NV; NY; OH; OK; OR; PA; RI; SC; SD; TN; TX; UT; VA; VT; WA; WI; WV; WY; AB; BC; MB; NB; NT; ON; QC; SK
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AK; AR; AZ; CA; CO; ID; IL; KS; MI; MO; MT; ND; NM; NV; NY; OK; OR; SD; TX; UT; WA; WY; AB; BC; MB; NT; ON; SK; YT
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Discussion | Elymus canadensis grows on dry to moist or damp, often sandy or gravelly soil on prairies, dunes, stream banks, ditches, roadsides, and disturbed ground, or, especially to the south, in thickets and open woods near streams. It is widespread in most of temperate North America, extending from the southwestern Northwest Territories to Coahuila, Mexico, being especially common in the Great Plains. Reports from California and the southeastern states appear to be based on misidentifications. E. canadensis is considered a good forage species. Elymus canadensis is sometimes confused with E. riparius (see previous), from which it differs in having curved rather than straight awns; and with E. wiegandii (p. 305), from which it differs in its less robust habit and narrower leaves. It can hybridize with E. glabriflorus (p. 296), E. virginicus (p. 298), E. hystrix (p. 316) and allies, E. glaucus (p. 306), E. trachycaulus (p. 321), Pseudoroegneria spicata (p. 281), and other species. Subsequent introgression may have contributed to much of the diversity within the genus (Pohl 1959; Brown and Pratt 1960; Nelson and Tyrl 1978; Davies 1980; Campbell 2002). The three varieties recognized here show clear differences in their typical expression and evidence some geographic separation, but they may prove to be artificial reference points within a more or less continuous variation (Sanders et al. 1979). Nevertheless, crossing barriers sometimes exist between the varieties, and even between some sympatric strains (Church 1954, 1958, 1967a). (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Elymus glaucus grows in moist to dry soil in meadows, thickets, and open woods. It is widespread in western North America, from Alaska to Saskatchewan, and south to Baja California and New Mexico. It is also sporadic, sometimes appearing transitional to E. trachycaulus (p. 321), from the northern Great Plains to southern Ontario and New York and, as a disjunct, on rocky sites in the Ozark and Ouachita mountains. Populations can differ greatly in morphology, especially in rhizome development, leaf width, pubescence, and the prevalence of solitary spikelets; their crossing relationships are partly correlated with such variation (Snyder 1950, 1951; Stebbins 1957, Wilson et al. 2001). Rhizome development and the production of solitary spikelets may also be environmental responses. Rhizomatous plants are more common on unstable slopes or sandy soils. Plants with solitary spikelets are more common on poor soil or in shade. They are often confused, particularly in the herbarium, with E. stebbinsii (p. 329) or E. trachycaulus. They differ from E. stebbinsii in their shorter anthers and awned glumes. Distinction from E. trachycaulus can be difficult with herbarium specimens, but is generally easy in the field, E. glaucus having more evenly leafy culms, laxer and wider blades, more tapered glumes that are almost always awned, and shorter anthers than the sympatric E. trachycaulus. There are reports of natural hybrids with several other species of Elymus, including E. elymoides (p. 318), E. multisetus (p. 318) (see E. ×hansenii, p. 340), E. trachycaulus, and E. stebbinsii. These hybrids often appear at least partially fertile. Elymus glaucus can also form intergeneric hybrids with Leymus and Hordeum (see ×Elyleymus, p. 343, and ×Leydeum, p. 368). The following three subspecies appear to be morphologically, ecologically, and geographically distinct. Plants found at elevations of up to 2200 m along the Pacific coast, with hairy leaf blades and lemma awns usually shorter than 20 mm, have been called subsp. jepsonii (Burtt Davy) Gould, but Wilson et al. (2001) demonstrated that such plants are neither genetically nor ecologically distinct from those with glabrous leaf blades; they are included here in subsp. glaucus. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
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Key |
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Source | FNA vol. 24, p. 303. | FNA vol. 24, p. 306. | ||||||||||||||||
Parent taxa | Poaceae > subfam. Pooideae > tribe Triticeae > Elymus | Poaceae > subfam. Pooideae > tribe Triticeae > Elymus | ||||||||||||||||
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Synonyms | E. glaucus var. maximus | |||||||||||||||||
Name authority | L. | Buckley | ||||||||||||||||
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