Common Name:
VIRGINIA WILD-RYE
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Coefficient of Conservatism:
4
Coefficient of Wetness:
-3
Wetness Index:
FACW
Physiognomy:
Nt P-Grass
A. A. Reznicek
Moist deciduous or sometimes coniferous forests and thickets, especially along stream banks and floodplains; open marshy shores and meadows.
An extremely variable species, but normally distinct in the strongly hardened glumes (basally and on inner face), conspicuously outcurved at their bases. The spikelets disarticulate below the glumes, leaving the rachis naked, unlike E. villosus or E. riparius, which disarticulate above the glumes, leaving the rachis bristling with glumes. A very few collections appear intermediate with E. riparius and may represent hybrids.
Elymus curvatus Piper is known from near Lake Superior in Minnesota, Ontario, and Wisconsin, and could occur in the western Upper Peninsula. It resembles E. virginicus, but has lemmas awnless or with vestigial awns less than 4 mm long, whereas E. virginicus has most lemmas awned longer than 5 mm.