Phleum alpinum
Phleum paniculatum
alpine timothy, fléole alpine, mountain timothy, phléole alpine, timothy grass
British timothy
15-50 cm, often decumbent, lower internodes not enlarged or bulbous.
5-30(55) cm, erect.
of the flag leaves inflated;
auricles not developed, leaf edges sometimes wrinkled at the junction of the sheath and blade;
ligules 1-4 mm, truncate;
blades to 17 cm long, 4-7 mm wide, flat.
of the flag leaves not inflated;
auricles not developed;
ligules 5-7 mm, acute;
blades to 19 cm long, 5-7 mm wide, flat or folded.
1-6 cm long, 5-12 mm wide, usually 1.5-3 times as long as wide, subglobose to broadly cylindric, not tapering distally;
branches adnate to the rachises.
1-12 cm long, 3.5-7 mm wide, narrowly cylindrical, tapering somewhat distally.
2.5-4.5 mm, sides scabrous, keels hispid, apices awned, awns 0.8-2.5(3.2) mm;
lemmas 1.7-2.5 mm, about 3/4 as long as the glumes, mostly glabrous, keels hairy, hairs to 0.1 mm;
anthers 1-1.5(2) mm.
1.5-2.5 mm, scabrous, inflated, keels sometimes slightly ciliate, margins ciliate distally, apices abruptly truncate, mucronate to awned, awns to 0.6 mm, lower glumes pilose on the margins;
lemmas about 1/3 as long as the glumes, pubescent;
anthers 0.3-0.5 mm.
= 14, 28.
= 28.
Phleum alpinum
Phleum paniculatum
Phleum alpinum grows along stream banks, on moist prairie hillsides, and in wet mountain meadows. It is a circumboreal species extending, in the Flora region, from northern North America southward through the mountains to Mexico and South America. It is also widespread in northern Eurasia. Isolated, depauperate plants of P. pratense may be difficult to distinguish from P. alpinum; there is never any difficulty in the field.
Kula et al. (2006) demonstrated that American and northern European plants of Phleum alpinum belong to the same taxon. They mistakenly identified the taxon as P. commutatum Gaudin. Because Humphries (1978) lectotypified P. alpinum on a plant from Lapland, it has priority over P. commutatum. North American plants belong to P. alpinum L. subsp. alpinum and are tetraploid. The count of 2n =14 applies to Phleum alpinum subsp. rhaeticum Humphries, which grows in the mountains of central and southern Europe.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Phleum paniculatum is native to dry habitats in southern and south-central Europe. In the Flora region, it is known only from old ballast dump records.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
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