Relatives
Elymus jacutensis (Drobov) Tzvelev - Yakutian Couch, Yakutian Wild Rye.
Taxonomic position.
Family Poaceae Benth. genus Elymus L.Morphology and biology.
Perennial grass. Forms loose mats. Culms (25)40-80 cm tall, quite often with decumbent bases of shoots. Nodes usually glabrous, rarely with few short hairs. Sheaths glabrous, smooth; leaf blades (2)3-6 mm wide, flat, glabrous, scabrous. Spikes (5)6-12 cm long, erect, rather dense, but with remote lower spikelets (rachis segments 15-30 mm long), usually greenish, less often with poor pink-violet tinge. Spikelets 12-17 mm long, 3-5(7)-flowered. Rachilla segments densely hairy. Glumes 5-9 mm long, 3-5-veined, lanceolate, shortly awned, glabrous or more or less hairy, scabrous at veins. Lemma 8-11(12) mm long, lanceolate, long-sharpened, with awn 2-8(9) mm long, shortly hairy in lower half or almost throughout surface. Anthers 1.2.1.8 mm long. Flowers in July - August. Anemophilous. 2n=28.Distribution.
West and East Siberia, Far East, Alaska, Northwestern Canada.Ecology.
On sandy-shingly alluvions in river valleys and lakesides, less often in tundra belt or tundra zone on stony slopes and in valley meadows.Use and economic value.
Forage grass.References:
Kharkevich SS., ed. 1985. Vascular plants of the Soviet Far East. V.1. Leningrad: Nauka. 398 p. (In Russian).Malyshev LI., Peshkova GA., ed. 1990. Flora of Siberia. V.4. Poaceae (Gramineae). Novosibirsk: Nauka. 361 p. (In Russian).
Tzvelev NN. 1976. Grasses of the Soviet Union. Leningrad: Nauka. 788 p. (In Russian).