Kingdom: Plantae

Phylum: Magnoliophyta -- flowering plants

Class: Liliopsida -- monocotyledons

Order: Cyperales

Family: Poaceae -- grass

Common Name: slender wheatgrass

Species Code: ELTR7

Origin: Native to North America. Widespread in moist meadows and open forest over much of North America except the southeastern US. Slender wheatgrass is probably not native to the Palouse. It is a native of Montana that has been widely planted for forage, hay, erosion control, and green manure. It is likely that occurrences on the Palouse are the result of those introductions.

Rare: no

Form: grass, perennial, caespitose, 30-120 cm, ascending to erect; nodes generally glabrous.

Duration: perennial

Longevity: short-lived

Habitat Type: prairie

Wetland Indicator Status: not listed

Leaves: sheaths usually glabrous; auricles absent or small; ligules 0.2-0.8 mm, truncate; blades 2–8 mm wide, flat to involute, lower surfaces usually smooth and glabrous, upper surfaces usually glabrous but sometimes hairy.

Mature height: 12-48 inches

Flowers: borne in a spike 4-25 cm long, erect, with usually 1 spikelet per node; spikelets 9–20 mm long, usually at least twice as long as the internodes, with 3–9 florets; glumes lanceolate to narrowly ovate, unequal, 5–17 mm long, from nearly as long to longer than the first lemma, 3–7-veined, only 1 vein extending to the apex, margins hyaline or scarious; lemmas 6–13 mm, glabrous, unawned or more often awned, awns to 40 mm.

Flower color: inconspicuous

Anthesis: June

Fruit: caryopsis, disarticulation above the glumes.

Characteristics:
A highly variable species with a long list of synonyms. Presently there are two subspecies recognized, Elymus trachycaulus (Link) Gould ex Shinners ssp. trachycaulus (formerly Agropyron trachycaulum), and Elymus trachycaulus (Link) Gould ex Shinners ssp. subsecundus (Link) A.& D. Löve (formerly Agropyron subsecundum).
135,000 seeds/lb (USDA NRCS PLANTS Database 2009).
Short-lived.
2n=28 (Barkworth et al 2002, Baldwin et al 2004).
Can hybridize with Hordeum jubatum to form what has been called E. macounii Vasey (Baldwin et al 2004).
Wind pollinated.
Flowers are perfect.
Excellent forage for livestock and wildlife.
Low value forage for Rocky Mountain elk in summer, better in fall (Kufeld 1973). Good to excellent forage for livestock and wildlife, especially early in the season (Stubbendieck et al 1997). Small mammals and large ungulates forage on the plants during all seasons (Sedivec & Barker 1998).
Many grasses are hosts for the larva of the common wood nymph (Cercyonis pegala) and the common ringlet (Coenonympha californica) butterflies (Pocewicz 2005).

Sun requirement: full

Soil moisture: mesic

Precipitation: 8-25 inches (USDA NRCS PLANTS Database 2009).

Fire: Very susceptible to fire during the growing season. Crowns usually survive dormant season fires during the summer and fall. Regrowth occurs from surviving crowns and from seed stored in the seed bank (Howard 1992).

Sowing time: spring

Transplant time: spring

Stratification: none required

Seed yield: high

Seed harvest: easy

Seed first harvest: second season

Seed cleaning: easy

Planting duration: short

Seed insect problem: none noted

Seed shatter: increases with maturity

Seed size: large

Seed harvest date: late July

Herbaria: Specimen data and digital resources from The Consortium of Pacific Northwest Herbaria

Key words: upland non-native perennial grass

Propagation:
6 protocols in the Native Plant Network
plugs, Pullman WA Plant Materials Center
seed, Pullman WA Plant Materials Center
seed, Bridger MT Plant Materials Center
University of Kentucky
University of Kentucky
Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado

Other Propagation Information:
Grows readily from seed without pretreatment.
Reproduces sexually by seed.

Notes: This species is a Montana native which has been widely used and quite likely introduced here of the Palouse.

References:
Baldwin, B.G., S. Boyd, B.J. Ertter, D.J. Keil, R.W. Patterson, T.J. Rosatti, and D.H. Wilken (eds). 2004. Jepson Online Interchange for California Floristics. University and Jepson Herbaria, University of California, Berkeley, CA. Accessed 8/19/09 online at http://ucjeps.berkeley.edu/interchange.html

Barkworth, Mary E., Julian J.N. Campbell, and Bjorn Salomon. 2002. Elymus. In: Barkworth, Mary E., Kathleen M. Capels, Laurel Anderton, Sandy Long, and Michael B. Piep (eds.). 2002. Manual of Grasses for North America. Utah State University Herbarium. Logan, Utah. Online at http://herbarium.usu.edu/GrassManual/

Howard, Janet L. 1992. Elymus trachycaulus. In: Fire Effects Information System, [Online]. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, Fire Sciences Laboratory (Producer). Available: http://www.fs.fed.us/database/feis/ [2009, August 19].

Kufeld, Roland. 1973. Foods Eaten by the Rocky Mountain Elk. Journal of Range Management 26:106-113.

Pocewicz, Amy. 2005. Host Plants of Palouse Butterfly Species. 2 page handout to accompany the April 2005 presentation to the Palouse Prairie Foundation.

Sedivec, Kevin K., and William T. Barker. 1998. Selected North Dakota and Minnesota Range Plants. North Dakota State University Department of Animal and Range Sciences Extension Bulletin EB-69. Fargo, North Dakota. Online at http://www.ag.ndsu.edu/pubs/ansci/range/eb69-2.htm Accessed 12/10/06.

Stubbendieck, James, Stephan L. Hatch, and Charles H. Butterfield. 1997. North American Range Plants. 5th edition. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, NE. 501 pp.

USDA NRCS. 2009. The PLANTS Database (http://plants.usda.gov, 19 August 2009). National Plant Data Center, Baton Rouge, LA 70874-4490 USA.

Links:
Plant Profile from the USDA PLANTS Database
Species account from the Fire Effects Information System
Species description from the Grass Manual on the Web
Plant Guide from the USDA PLANTS Database