3. Elymus elongatus (Host) Runemark ssp. ponticus (Podp.) Melderis

Pl. 185 h, i; Map 748

Elytrigia pontica (Podp.) Holub

Lophopyrum ponticum (Podp.) Á. Löve

Plants without rhizomes, forming tufts. Flowering stems 50–160 cm long, glabrous, often glaucous. Leaf sheaths with the margins hairy. Leaf blades 8–50 cm long, 2–6 mm wide, usually with inrolled margins, glabrous or sparsely hairy, with a pair of usually prominent auricles at the base, the upper surface somewhat corrugated (appearing with 6–8 grooves between the ridged veins). Inflorescences 10–40 cm long, erect or nearly so, with the spikelets not or only slightly overlapping on the inflorescence axis, occurring singly (rarely paired) at the nodes, the axis persistent, not breaking into segments at maturity. Spikelets with 5–13 florets, erect or ascending, disarticulating above the glumes and between the florets. Glumes similar in size and appearance (the lower glume slightly shorter than the upper), the body 6–10 mm long, 1.5–3.5 mm wide, narrowly oblong, 5‑ or 7‑nerved, flattened and straight or nearly so at the base, glabrous and somewhat hardened, truncate at the tip, awnless. Lemmas with the body 9–13 mm long, broadly lanceolate, 5‑ or 7‑nerved, glabrous, bluntly pointed to rounded or truncate at the tip, awnless. Paleas mostly 7–11 mm long, the tip rounded or truncate. Anthers 2.5–6.0 mm long. 2n=70 June–July.

Introduced, known only from a single specimen from St. Louis (native of Europe and Asia, escaped sporadically in the western U.S. and Canada). Railroads.

This species was reported for Missouri under the name Agropyron elongatum (Host) P. Beauv. by Mühlenbach (1979), who noted only a single tuft. It is sometimes segregated into the genus Elytrigia Desv. and usually treated as a separate species, Elytrigia pontica (ssp. pontica), following Jarvie’s (1992) monograph of the group. See the treatment of E. repens for discussion of the differences between Elytrigia and Elymus in the strict sense. Apparently there is no valid combination for ssp. pontica at the species level under Elymus. It differs from true E. elongatus in having the lowermost spikelets of the inflorescence shorter than the internode of the axis next to it, the leaf sheaths hairy along the margins, and the paleas with longer hairs along the keels.