12. Elymus virginicus L. (Virginia wild rye)

Pl. 184 i–k; Map 757

Plants without rhizomes, forming tufts. Flowering stems 40–140 cm long, erect or less commonly weak (leaning or arched). Leaf blades 5–30 cm long, 4–10(–18) mm wide, usually flat, glabrous or roughened to hairy, green to bluish green, sometimes somewhat glaucous, with a pair of inconspicuous auricles at the base or these less commonly absent. Inflorescences with the base sometimes enclosed in the uppermost leaf sheath, 4–16 cm long, erect or nearly so, with clusters of mostly 2 spikelets per node (rarely 1 or 3), the axis persistent, not breaking into segments at maturity. Spikelets with 2–4(–6) florets, erect to loosely ascending or spreading at maturity, disarticulating below the glumes and between the florets. Glumes similar in size and appearance, 10–40 mm long (including the awn), 0.8–2.5 mm wide, linear‑lanceolate, thickened and hardened at the base, strongly 1‑ or 3‑nerved only above the thickened part, expanded and flattened above the bowed‑out base, glabrous, hairy, or roughened, tapered slightly to a straight awn 1–25 mm long (or the awn less commonly absent), remaining attached to the lowermost floret at disarticulation, leaving a naked inflorescence axis. Lemmas with the body 6–9 mm long, narrowly elliptic‑lanceolate, 5‑nerved, glabrous, hairy, or roughened, the tip with the awn 1–40 mm long or less commonly absent, straight or slightly curved. Paleas mostly 6.5–8.5 mm long, the tip rounded or truncate. Anthers 2–4 mm long. 2n=28. May–September.

Common throughout Missouri (U.S., Canada). Bottomland forests, mesic to dry upland forests, upland prairies, glades, ledges of bluffs, and banks of streams and rivers, often on limestone and dolomite substrates, also pastures, fallow fields, roadsides, railroads, and disturbed open areas.