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Image from:
Prof. Dr. Otto Wilhelm Thomé
Flora von Deutschland Österreich und der Schweiz.
1885

© Utah State University

Vegetative Morphology

 
Plants perennial, shortly rhizomatous.
Culms 15-75 cm.
Leaves mostly basal.
Sheaths open about 1/2 of their length.
Ligules about 0.5 mm.
Blades 4-16 cm long, blades of the upper leaves shorter than those below, 1.9-3.2 mm wide.

Reproductive Morphology

 
Panicles 8-20 cm long, to almost as wide.
Pedicels 5-20 mm.
Spikelets 4-5.5 mm, mostly oval.
Florets 3-6(10).
Lower glumes 2.5-3.2 mm.
Upper glumes 2.5-4 mm.
Lowermost lemmas 3-4 mm, indistinctly 9- or 10-veined.
Paleas about 3 mm.
Anthers 1.3-2 mm.
Caryopses 1.2-1.5 mm, distinctly flattened on 1 side.

Chromosome Number(s)

2n = 10, 14, 28

Typical Habitat(s)

Native to chalk and clay grasslands; it grows in acid to calcareous soils in moist to somewhat dry, sunny conditions, in meadow floodplains, forest clearings, old meadows, and pastures.

Cultivated as an ornamental, it can escape and colonize artificial habitats such as roadsides.

Nativity / Range

An European species.

It is known from scattered populations across the North American continent, from California to Nova Scotia.

Name/Synonymy Publication Info

Briza media L., Sp. pl. 1:70 (1753). TYPE: Europe.

Treatment From

Neil Snow.  Briza in Flora of North America, volume 24.  In prep.  Oxford University Press.

Fact Sheet Developed By

Pedro Oñativia Lake © 2006