Leymus triticoides
Leymus californicus
beardless lyme grass, beardless wildrye, creeping wildrye
California bottlebrush, California bottlebrush grass
45-125 cm tall, 1.8-3 mm thick, solitary or few together.
70-200 cm, erect, solitary.
exceeded by the spikes, often basally concentrated;
sheaths glabrous or hairy, hairs 0.5-1 mm;
auricles to 1 mm;
ligules 0.2-1.3 mm, truncate, erose;
blades 10-35 cm long, 3.5-10 mm wide, flat to involute, usually stiffly ascending, adaxial surfaces usually scabrous, often also sparsely hairy, hairs to 0.8 mm, most abundant proximally, veins 11-27, closely spaced, subequal, prominently ribbed.
exceeded by the spikes;
sheaths with stiff, 1-3 mm hairs;
auricles 1-6 mm;
ligules 1-5 mm;
blades 6-28 mm wide, lax, flat, scabrous, glabrous, or thinly pilose above.
5-20 cm long, 5-15 mm wide, with 2 spikelets at midspike, sometimes 1 or 3 at other nodes;
internodes 5-11.5 mm, usually mostly smooth and glabrous, sometimes strigillose distally, edges ciliate, cilia to 0.4 mm.
10-30 cm long, 2-5 cm wide, erect to nodding, lax, nodes with 2-4(5) spikelets, the basal spikelets often on 1-3 mm pedicels;
internodes 7-11(15) mm.
10-22 mm, with 3-7 florets.
12-17 mm, appressed to spreading, with 2-5 florets.
5-16 mm long, 0.5-1.2 mm wide, bases not overlapping, glabrous and smooth proximally, scabrous distally, tapering from below midlength to the subulate apices, stiff, keeled, the central portion thicker than the margins, 1(3)-veined, veins inconspicuous at midlength;
calluses usually glabrous, occasionally with a few hairs, hairs about 0.1 mm;
lemmas 5-12 mm, usually glabrous, occasionally sparsely hairy, hairs to 0.3 mm, apices acute, usually awned, awns to 3 mm;
anthers 3-6 mm, dehiscent.
absent or shorter than 1 mm;
lemmas 10-15 mm, sparsely scabrous to appressed hispid, awned, awns 16-33 mm, straight;
anthers 6-8 mm, dehiscent.
= 28.
= 56.
Leymus triticoides
Leymus californicus
Leymus triticoides grows in dry to moist, often saline meadows. Its range extends from southern British Columbia to Montana, south to California, Arizona, and New Mexico, but its populations are widely scattered. It is not known from Mexico. There is considerable variation within the species, but no pattern of variation suggesting the existence of infraspecific taxa is known. It is very similar to L. multicaulis, strains of which were initially released as L. triticoides by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The most consistent differences between them appear to be in the venation of the leaf blades and the vestiture of the calluses. Leymus triticoides is also very similar to L. simplex, differing from it in the number of spikelets at the midspike nodes.
Leymus triticoides hybridizes with other species of Leymus; hybrids with L. mollis are called L. xvancouverensis (see p. 358), those with L. condensatus are called L. xmultiflorus (see p. 362). Hybrids with L. cinereus are known, but have not been formally named. Plants identified as Elymus arenicolus Scribn. & J.G. Sm. are here included in L. flavescens, but may represent hybrids between L. triticoides and L. flavescens.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Leymus californicus is endemic to coniferous forests near the coast in western California, from Sonoma to Santa Cruz counties, at elevations from near sea level to 300 m. It used to be included in Hystrix Moench, a genus that was described as lacking glumes. The type species of Hystrix has since been shown to be more closely related to species of Elymus than to other species placed in Hystrix which, with the exception of L. californicus, are native to eastern Asia. Transfer of L. californicus, and some of the other species formerly placed in Hystrix, to Leymus is supported by molecular data (Jensen and Wang 1997; Mason-Gamer 2001). The situation with respect to L. californicus illustrates the danger of circumscribing a taxon by its lack of a character. In this case, it appears that reduction in the glumes has taken place within both Elymus and Leymus.
Leymus californicus is unusual among the other species of Leymus in the contiguous United States in growing in a forested habitat, but L. innovatus also grows in forests, and some of the Chinese species that have traditionally been placed in Hystrix are also reported to grow in forest habitats. Indeed, these similarities, plus its restriction to the vicinity of San Francisco, suggest the possibility that L. californicus is an introduced Chinese species.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
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