Western Wetland Flora
Field Office Guide to Plant Species
Elymus triticoides Buckley
- Family: Grass (Gramineae)
- Flowering: May-August
- Field Marks: This grass is unlike most others in the genus Elymus by its very slender and short spikes, its long-creeping rhizomes, its usually awnless lemmas, and its paired spikelets 1/2-3/4 inch long.
- Habitat: Meadows, damp ravines, often in salty areas.
- Habit: Perennial herb from much branched rhizomes.
- Stems: Upright, hollow, usually unbranched, up to 3 1/2 feet tall, smooth or slightly rough to the touch.
- Leaves: Elongated, flat to rolled into a narrow tube, up to 1/3 inch wide, rough to the touch; ligules extremely short, with tiny cilia.
- Flowers: Borne in spikelets, the spikelets usually paired and forming a slender spike up to 10 inches long; spikelets 3- to 8-flowered, 1/2-3/4 inch long; glumes slender-pointed, 1/6-1/3 inch long; lemmas less than 1/2 inch long, usually awnless
- Sepals: 0.
- Petals: 0.
- Stamens: 3.
- Pistils: Ovary superior.
- Grains: Narrowly oblongoid, smooth except for a few hairs at the tip.
- Notes: This plant produces viable seeds very irregularly. As a result, it has minimal value as food for wildlife
Previous Species -- Basin Wild-rye (Elymus cinereus)
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Next Species -- Small Floating Manna Grass (Glyceria borealis)
