Kansas Wildflowers and Grasses

BOTTLEBRUSH GRASS

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Elymus hystrix L.

[=Hystrix patula Moench]

Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve, Chase County, Kansas

Perennial

Height: 20-48 inches

Family: Poaceae - Grass Family

Flowering Period: June, July

Culms:

Erect or bent abruptly, tufted or solitary, slender, simple, hollow, smooth.

Blades:

Flat, spreading, 3 to 10 inches long, .25 to .6 inch wide, tapering to both ends, rough and usually thinly-hairy above, smooth below.

Sheaths:

Open, not keeled, smooth to rough or hairy.

Ligules:

Short, minutely-fringed membrane, truncate; auricles conspicuous to rarely absent.

Inflorescences:

Spike, erect to nodding, loosely-flowered, 3 to 6 inches long including awns, terminal.

Spikelets:

Very short-stalked; mostly in pairs, 1/5 to 3/5 inch long (exclusive of awns), initially ascending but horizontally spreading at maturity, 2-4-flowered; glumes usually absent but some spikelets bearing 1 or 2 short, scale-like or bristle-like glumes up to 1/5 inch long; lemmas lanceolate, 1/3 to 1/2 inch long, rigid, rounded on back, pubescent to glabrous, long-pointed, tapering into long, slender awn.

Habitat:

Moist or rocky woods.

Distribution:

East 1/3 of Kansas.

Uses:

The Iroquois boiled the leaves with reed grass roots as a medicine to soak corn seeds in prior to planting.

Comments:

Woodland grass.

Bottlebrush grass