Elymus virginicus |
Elymus virginicus var. intermedius |
|||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
common eastern wild-rye, Virginia wild rye, élyme de virginie |
||||||||||||||
Habit | Plants cespitose, not rhizomatous, sometimes glaucous, especially in the spikes. | Plants often partly glaucous, becoming yellowish, reddish, or slightly purplish brown at maturity. | ||||||||||||
Culms | 30-130 cm, erect to slightly decumbent; nodes 4-9, concealed or exposed, usually glabrous, rarely pubescent. |
usually 60-120 cm; nodes usually 4-8, concealed or exposed; auricles and ligules usually poorly developed. |
||||||||||||
Leaves | evenly distributed; sheaths usually glabrous, rarely hirsute, occasionally reddish or purplish; auricles absent or to 1.8 mm, pale brown; ligules shorter than 1 mm; blades 2-14(18) mm wide, usually spreading or lax, sometimes becoming involute, basal blades similar to the upper blades, adaxial surfaces usually smooth, sometimes scabridulous, usually glabrous, occasionally pubescent. |
|||||||||||||
Blades | 4-18 mm wide, lax or involute, glabrous, scabridulous, or occasionally pubescent. |
|||||||||||||
Spikes | (3)4-16(22) cm long, 1-2.2(2.5) cm wide, erect, the bases often sheathed, with 2 spikelets per node, rarely with 3 at some nodes; internodes 3-5 mm long, 0.25-0.5 thick at the thinnest sections, smooth and glabrous, or scabrous, or with hairs beneath the spikelets. |
6-22 cm long, sheathed or exserted; spikelets hispidulous to villous-hirsute, usually glaucous; glumes 0.8-1.2(2) mm wide, indurate and bowed out in the basal 2-4 mm. |
||||||||||||
Spikelets | 10-15 mm, appressed to slightly divergent, with (2)3-4(6) florets, lowest florets functional; disarticulation below the glumes and each floret, or the lowest floret falling with the glumes. |
|||||||||||||
Glumes | subequal or equal, the basal 1-4 mm terete, indurate, without evident venation, bowed out, yellowish, glume bodies 7-15 mm long, (0.5)0.7-2.3 mm wide, linear-lanceolate, widening above the base, 3-5(8)-veined, usually smooth or scabridulous, margins firm, awns 3-10(15) mm, straight; lemmas 6-10 mm, scabridulous, glabrous or villous-hirsute, awns (5)8-20(25) mm, straight; paleas 5-9 mm, obtuse; anthers 2-3.5(4) mm. |
|||||||||||||
Anthesis | usually mid-June to late July (mid-August). |
early July to mid-August. |
||||||||||||
2n | = 28. |
|||||||||||||
Elymus virginicus |
Elymus virginicus var. intermedius |
|||||||||||||
Distribution |
AL; AR; AZ; CT; DC; DE; FL; GA; IA; IL; IN; KS; KY; LA; MA; MD; ME; MI; MN; MO; MS; NC; ND; NE; NH; NJ; NM; NY; OH; OK; PA; RI; SC; SD; TN; TX; VA; VT; WI; WV; WY; AB; BC; LB; MB; NB; NS; ON; PE; QC; SK
|
|||||||||||||
Discussion | Elymus virginicus is widespread in temperate North America, growing as far west as British Columbia and Arizona. It is infrequent to rare in the Rocky Mountains, western Great Plains, and southeastern coastal plain. It is a complex species, divided here into four intergrading varieties. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Elymus virginicus var. intermedius grows in moist, base-rich soil in open forests and thickets, especially on rocky, gravelly, or sandy banks of larger streams. It grows from the central and southern Great Plains, through the central Mississippi and Ohio valleys, to the northeastern United States and adjacent Canada, but is rare to absent south of Oklahoma to Tennessee and to Maryland. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
||||||||||||
Key |
|
|||||||||||||
Source | FNA vol. 24, p. 298. | FNA vol. 24, p. 298. | ||||||||||||
Parent taxa | Poaceae > subfam. Pooideae > tribe Triticeae > Elymus | Poaceae > subfam. Pooideae > tribe Triticeae > Elymus > Elymus virginicus | ||||||||||||
Sibling taxa | ||||||||||||||
Subordinate taxa | ||||||||||||||
Synonyms | E. virginicus forma hirsutiglumis, E. hirsutiglumis | |||||||||||||
Name authority | L. | (Vasey ex A. Gray) Bush | ||||||||||||
Web links |
|