Leymus triticoides (Buckley) Pilger   =Elymus triticoides   Poaceae (Grass Family)   Native   Beardless Wild-Rye

                               May Photo

Plant Characteristics:  Rhizomes extensively creeping; culms mostly glaucous, 2-3.5 mm. in diam., 6-12 dm. tall, mostly in large masses; blades mostly 2-6 mm. wide, flat or soon involute; spike erect, slender to +/- dense, sometimes compound, 1-2 dm. long; spikelets 1-3 per node, 12-20 mm. long; glumes subulate or narrow, firm, 0-1-3 nerved, 5-16 mm. long, awn tipped; lemmas 5-12 mm. long, brownish to purplish, glabrous, awn generally +/- 3 mm.

Habitat:  Moist and alkaline places below 7500 ft.; many plant communities, +/- throughout the state; to Wash., Mont., Tex., L. Calif., San Miguel, Santa Cruz, Santa Catalina Ids.  June-July.

Name:  Greek, elumos, ancient name for a grain.  (Munz, Flora So. Calif. 966).  Latin, triticum, an old name for wheat.  New Latin, oides, a contraction of Gr., -o+eidos, denoting likeness of form. (Jaeger 271, 172).  Triticoides, like wheat.  (John Johnson).  Leymus, an anagram of Elymus.  (Hickman, Ed. 1268).

General:  Moderately common under the skirts of willow trees throughout the study area.   Photographed on the Santa Ana Heights Flats. (my comments).      Beardless wild-rye is frequently mistaken for quackgrass, Agropyron repens.  In the wild-rye there are two spikelets at each joint of the rachis, whereas in quackgrass there is one spikelet at each joint; rarely in pairs, at the lower joints.  (Robbins et al. 77).      Elymus species have been known to cause hay fever and asthma.  (Fuller 382).      In June 1994, a colony of plants was found in a small draw near the top of the Castaway's bluffs.  The area is not the moist saline habitat of the species but is mostly covered with Carpobrotus edulis which may hold moisture?  (my comments).     About 50 species of north temp. regions.  (Munz, Flora So. Calif. 965).       Hybridizes with L. mollis, L. condensatus, and L. cinereus.  (Hickman, Ed. 1270).       The 1993 Jepson Manual changed the genus name Elymus to Leymus.  The new genus name is an anagram of Elymus.  (Hickman, Ed. 1268).         E. triticoides is recommended for holding embankments.  On the western ranges E. cinereus and E. triticoides are important.  (Hitchcock 249).

Text Ref:  Hickman, Ed. 1270; Munz, Flora So. Calif. 966; Robbins et al. 77.

Photo Ref:  May 2 87 # 20A,21A,22A; June 90 # 2,3.

Identity: by John Johnson.

First Found:  May 1987.

Computer Ref:  Plant Data 318.

Have plant specimen.

Last edit 11/26/04.  

                            May Photo                                                   June Photo