Flora of North America species comparison

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Holcus

velvet-grass
Habit Plants usually perennial, rarely annual; cespitose or rhizomatous, rarely both cespitose and rhizomatous.
Culms

(8)20-200 cm, glabrous or pubescent;

nodes glabrous or retrorsely glabrous or puberulent;

blade flat, pubescent.
Inflorescences

terminal panicles, contracted to open.
Spikelets

laterally compressed, with 2(3) florets, lower florets bisexual, upper floret(s) staminate or sterile;

rachillas curved below the lowest florets, sometimes prolonged beyond the base of the distal florets;

disarticulation below the glumes.
Glumes

equaling to exceeding the florets, strongly keeled, unawned;

upper lemmas awned from below the apices, awns hooked or geniculate;

paleas thin, subequal to the lemmas;

lodicules 2, glabrous, toothed or not;

anthers 3;

ovaries glabrous.
Caryopses

shorter than the lemmas, concealed at maturity, glabrous.
x

= 4, 7.

Holcus
Distribution
map from FNA
AK; AL; AR; AZ; CA; CO; CT; DC; DE; GA; IA; ID; IL; IN; KS; KY; LA; MA; MD; ME; MI; MO; MS; MT; NC; ND; NH; NJ; NM; NV; NY; OH; OK; OR; PA; RI; SC; TN; TX; UT; VA; VT; WA; WI; WV; HI; PR; AB; BC; LB; NB; NS; ON; QC; SK
[BONAP county map]
Discussion

Holcus, a genus of eight species, is native to Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. One species, H. lanatus, has become widely naturalized in the Americas, Japan, and Hawaii; a second, H. mollis, has become a troublesome weed in some areas of the Flora region.

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Parent taxa Poaceae > subfam. Pooideae > tribe Poeae
Subordinate taxa
H. lanatus, H. mollis
Key
1. Awns 1-2 mm long, forming a curved hook at maturity; culms densely pilose adjacent to the lower nodes; plants cespitose, not rhizomatous
H. lanatus
1. Awns 3-5 mm long, straight or geniculate at maturity; culms glabrous or sparsely pubescent adjacent to the lower nodes; plants not cespitose, rhizomatous
H. mollis
Name authority L.
Source FNA vol. 24, p. 739. Treatment author: Lisa A. Standley.
Web links 
Unless otherwise noted, all data comes from the online version of the Flora of North America, who have made most of their content available via a Creative Commons license (CC BY 4.0).



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