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ciliate melic, hairy melic, hairy melicgrass, silky melic, silky-spike melic

Coast Range melic, little California melic, little California melica, smallflower melicgrass

Habit Plants cespitose, sometimes shortly rhizomatous. Plants densely cespitose, not rhizomatous.
Culms

20-60(100) cm, not forming corms.

35-120 cm, not forming corms;

internodes scabridulous immediately above the nodes.

Sheaths

glabrous or shortly and sparsely pubescent;

ligules 1-4 mm;

blades 7-15 cm long, 1-4 mm wide, usually involute.

glabrous or pilose;

ligules 0.8-6.5 mm;

blades 1-6 mm wide, abaxial surfaces glabrous or puberulent, adaxial surfaces with hairs.

Panicles

4-8(25) cm, narrowly cylindrical, lax, pale;

branches 1.5-4 cm, appressed to ascending, with 3-12(15) spikelets;

pedicels sharply bent below the spikelets;

disarticulation below the glumes.

5-36 cm;

branches 2.5-9 cm, appressed to reflexed, straight or flexuous, with 5-30 spikelets;

pedicels not sharply bent;

disarticulation above the glumes.

Spikelets

6-8 mm, with 1 bisexual floret, sometimes purple-tinged.

3-7 mm, with 1(2) bisexual florets;

rachilla internodes 0.3-0.6 mm.

Lower glumes

4-6 mm long, 1.5-2.5 mm wide, ovate, 1-5-veined, acute;

upper glumes 6-8 mm long, about 1.5 mm wide, lanceolate, acute to acuminate;

lemmas 4-6.5 mm, lanceolate, 7-9-veined, papillose, margins and marginal veins pubescent, hairs 3.5-5 mm, not twisted;

rudiments 1-1.7 mm, ovoid, not resembling the bisexual florets.

2-5 mm long, 1-2 mm wide, 1-veined;

upper glumes 2.5-6 mm long, 1.5-2.5 mm wide, 1-veined;

lemmas 3-7 mm, glabrous, sometimes scabrous, with 7+ veins, veins prominent, apices rounded to acute, unawned;

paleas almost as long as the lemmas;

anthers 1.5-2.5 mm;

rudiments 1-4 mm, not resembling the lower florets, longer and thicker than the terminal rachilla internode, truncate to obtuse.

2n

=18, 36.

= 18.

Melica ciliata

Melica imperfecta

Distribution
from FNA
WA
[BONAP county map]
from FNA
AZ; CA; NV
[WildflowerSearch map]
[BONAP county map]
Discussion

Melica ciliata is grown as an ornamental in North America and is not known to have escaped. It is native to Europe, northern Africa, and southwestern Asia, where it grows on damp to somewhat dry soils.

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)

Melica imperfecta grows from sea level to 1500 m, on stable coastal dunes, dry, rocky slopes, and in open woods, from California and southern Nevada south to Baja California, Mexico. Plants vary with respect to size, panicle shape, and pubescence, but no infraspecific taxa merit recognition. Boyle (1945) obtained vigorous, almost completely sterile hybrids between M. imperfecta and both M. torreyana and M. californica, but found no examples of natural hybrids.

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)

Source FNA vol. 24, p. 100. FNA vol. 24, p. 90.
Parent taxa Poaceae > subfam. Pooideae > tribe Meliceae > Melica Poaceae > subfam. Pooideae > tribe Meliceae > Melica
Sibling taxa
M. altissima, M. aristata, M. bulbosa, M. californica, M. frutescens, M. fugax, M. geyeri, M. harfordii, M. imperfecta, M. montezumae, M. mutica, M. nitens, M. porteri, M. smithii, M. spectabilis, M. stricta, M. subulata, M. torreyana
M. altissima, M. aristata, M. bulbosa, M. californica, M. ciliata, M. frutescens, M. fugax, M. geyeri, M. harfordii, M. montezumae, M. mutica, M. nitens, M. porteri, M. smithii, M. spectabilis, M. stricta, M. subulata, M. torreyana
Synonyms M. imperfecta var. refracta, M. imperfecta var. minor, M. imperfecta var. flexuosa
Name authority L. Trin.
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