Elymus canadensis |
Elymus sierrae |
|||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Canada wild rye, Canadian wild rye, Great Plains wild-rye, élyme du Canada |
Sierra wheatgrass, Sierra wildrye |
|||||||||
Habit | Plants loosely cespitose, rarely with rhizomes to 4 cm long and 1-2 mm thick, often glaucous. | Plants cespitose, not rhizomatous. | ||||||||
Culms | (40)60-150(180) cm, erect or decumbent; nodes 4-10, mostly concealed by the leaf sheaths, glabrous. |
20-50 cm, prostrate or decumbent and geniculate; nodes 1-2, exposed, glabrous. |
||||||||
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. |
basally concentrated; sheaths glabrous; auricles usually present, to 1 mm on the lower leaves; ligules 0.2-0.5 mm, erose; blades 1-5 mm wide, flat, abaxial surfaces smooth, glabrous, adaxial surfaces prominently ridged over the veins, with scattered hairs, hairs to 0.2 mm, veins closely spaced. |
||||||||
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. |
5-15 cm long, 1.5-2.5 cm wide including the awns, 0.7-1.2 cm wide excluding the awns, flexuous, erect to nodding distally, with 1 spikelet at most nodes, occasionally some of the lower nodes with 2 spikelets; internodes 5-15 mm long, 0.2-0.5 mm wide, both surfaces glabrous, edges ciliate, not scabrous. |
||||||||
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. |
15-20 mm, ascending to divergent, with 3-7 florets; rachillas glabrous; disarticulation above the glumes, beneath each floret. |
||||||||
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, 6-9 mm long, 0.7-1 mm wide, lanceolate, glabrous, the bases evidently veined, apices entire, tapering into a 3-10 mm awn; lemmas 12-16 mm, glabrous, sometimes scabridulous, apices bidentate, awned, awns 15-30 mm, arcuately diverging to strongly recurved; paleas subequal to the lemmas, apices about 0.4 mm wide; anthers 2-3.5 mm. |
||||||||
Anthesis | May to July. |
|||||||||
2n | = 28, rarely 42. |
= 28. |
||||||||
Elymus canadensis |
Elymus sierrae |
|||||||||
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
|
|||||||||
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 sierrae is best known from rocky slopes and ridgetops in the Sierra Nevada, at 2100-3400 m, and is also found in Washington and Oregon. It resembles E. scribneri (see previous), differing in its non-disarticulating rachises, longer rachis internodes, and longer anthers. Hybrids with E. elymoides (p. 318) have glumes with awns 15+ mm long, and some spikelets with narrower glume bases and shorter anthers. Specimens with wide-margined glumes suggest hybridization with E. violaceus (p. 324). (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
||||||||
Key |
|
|||||||||
Source | FNA vol. 24, p. 303. | FNA vol. 24, p. 332. | ||||||||
Parent taxa | Poaceae > subfam. Pooideae > tribe Triticeae > Elymus | Poaceae > subfam. Pooideae > tribe Triticeae > Elymus | ||||||||
Sibling taxa | ||||||||||
Subordinate taxa | ||||||||||
Synonyms | Agropyron pringlei | |||||||||
Name authority | L. | Gould | ||||||||
Web links |
|