Phleum alpinum
Phleum subulatum
alpine timothy, fléole alpine, mountain timothy, phléole alpine, timothy grass
Italian timothy
15-50 cm, often decumbent, lower internodes not enlarged or bulbous.
2-30(40) cm.
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, leaf edges often wrinkled at the junction of the sheath and blade;
ligules 4-7 mm, acute;
blades 1.5-12 cm long, 1-4 mm wide, sometimes convolute.
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.
0.8-11 cm long, 2-7 mm wide, narrowly cylindrical, parallel-sided.
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.
2-4 mm, semi-elliptical in outline, keels usually glabrous, apices of the lower and upper glumes pointing towards each other;
lemmas about 2/3 as long as the glumes, glabrous, midveins scabridulous;
anthers 1.5-2 mm.
= 14, 28.
= 14.
Phleum alpinum
Phleum subulatum
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 subulatum is native to the grasslands of southern 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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