ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

Vegetative Morphology

 
Plants perennial; usually cespitose, sometimes shortly rhizomatous.
Culms 5-130 cm, erect.
Sheaths open.
Auricles absent.
Ligules membranous.
Blades flat to involute, pubescent or glabrous.

Reproductive Morphology

 
Inflorescences panicles, usually dense and spikelike, sometimes lax, stiffly and narrowly pyramidal at anthesis.
Main rachis and branches pubescent.
Spikelets laterally compressed, with 2-4 florets.
Rachillas to 1 mm, glabrous or pubescent, usually prolonged beyond the distal florets, or bearing a vestigial floret.
Disarticulation above the glumes and beneath the florets.
Glumes subequal to or slightly exceeding the lemmas, membranous, scabrid to tomentose, keels sometimes ciliate.
Lower glumes 1-veined, somewhat narrower and shorter than the upper glumes.
Upper glumes obscurely 3(5)-veined.
Calluses with or without hairs.
Lemmas thin, membranous, 5-veined, margins shining, scarious, apices acute, sometimes mucronate or awned.
Paleas equaling or subequal to the lemmas, hyaline.
Lodicules 2, glabrous, toothed.
Anthers 3.
Ovaries glabrous.
Caryopses glabrous.

Species Distribution Maps

Koeleria asiatica Koeleria macrantha Koeleria pyramidata

Chromosome Number(s)

x = 7

Additional Notes

Named for Georg Ludwig Koeler (1765-1807), a botanist at Mainz.

Koeleria is a cosmopolitan genus of about 35 species that grow in dry grasslands and rocky soils; two are native to the Flora region. Koeleria pyramidata is sometimes said to be in the region; such reports seem to reflect a different interpretation of the genus. In Europe, Koeleria forms a series of polyploid complexes in which cytotypes are morphologically and ecologically distinct, but species boundaries are not.

top

Name/Synonymy Publication Info

Koeleria Pers., Syn. pl. 1:97 (1805). Airochloa Link, Hortus berol. 1:126 (1827); Brachystylus Dulac, Fl. Hautes-Pyr?n?es 85 (1867). LEC: Koeleria gracilis Pers., nom. illeg. [=Koeleria macrantha (Ledeb.) Schultes] [Nash in Britton & A. Br., Ill. fl. n. U.S., ed. 2, 1:245 (1913)].

Leptophyllochloa Calder?n in Nicora, Fl. Patag?nica 3:69 (1978). TYPE: Leptophyllochloa micrathera (Desv.) Calder?n.

Treatment from

L.A. Standley. Koeleria in Flora of North America, volume 24. In prep. Oxford University Press.

Fact Sheet Developed By

Pedro Oñativia Lake © 2006.