Plant Species: Koeleria macrantha, prairie junegrass
Kingdom: Plantae
Phylum: Magnoliophyta -- flowering plants
Class: Liliopsida -- monocotyledons
Order: Cyperales
Family: Poaceae (Graminae) -- grass
Genus: Koeleria
Species: macrantha
Common Name: prairie Junegrass
Species Code: KOMA
Origin: A circumboreal species native to much of temperate North America, northern Asia, and Europe. In western North America it prefers dry to mesic sites on well-drained soils of shrub-steppe, meadow-steppe, and open forest, extending into subalpine meadows. It is common but usually scattered in grasslands of the Palouse.
Rare: no
Form: cool-season perennial grass, densely caespitose; stems erect, 30-60 cm tall, glabrous to pilose.
Duration: perennial
Longevity: medium lifespan
Habitat Type: prairie
Wetland Indicator Status: not listed
Leaves: blades 2-20 cm long, flat (involute when dry), folded in bud, 1-3 mm wide, tips prow-shaped, scabrous, margins glabrous or short-hairy; auricles lacking; ligules membranous, erose, 0.5-2 mm tall, ciliate; sheaths with retrorse pubescence, sometimes glabrous; collar pilose on the margins.
Mature height: 12-24 inches
Flowers: borne in a dense spike-like panicle, 4-13 cm long, spreading at anthesis; spikelets 2-5 flowered, lemma 2.5-6.5 mm, shiny, awnless or rarely with short awn; glumes shorter than first floret, 2.5-5 mm long, first 1-nerved, second 3-nerved, shiny; palea shorter; callus pubescent.
Flower color: inconspicuous
Bloom: June
Bloom starts on:
Bloom ends on:
Fruit: caryopsis
Vegetation type:
Characteristics:
Reproduces sexually by seed.
K. macrantha is the accepted name because it predates K. cristata, which is therefore reduced to a synonym.
Some taxonomists have treated the North American plants as a separate species, K. nitida, but there seems to be no basis for the separation except geography and thus the
segregation is not accepted. Others have proposed a broad interpretation of K. pyramidata which includes K. macrantha, but that is not accepted
either (Arnow 1994).
2,315,000 seeds/lb (USDA NRCS PLANTS Database 2009).
Flowers are perfect.
2n=14, 28 (Robertson 1974, Standley 2002).
Wind pollinated.
Most western plants from dry regions are tetraploids (2n=28) (Robertson 1974). Tetraploid plants are earlier to mature and this probably allows them to survive the summer drought in the west.
An excellent forage grass for livestock and wildlife.
Fruit is a caryopsis.
Many grasses are hosts for the larva of the common wood nymph (Cercyonis pegala) and the common ringlet (Coenonympha californica) butterflies (Pocewicz 2005).
Comments: Seed is not stored in the seedbank (Simonin 2000).
Sun requirement: full sun to partial light shade
Soil moisture: mesic
Precipitation: 14-20 inches (USDA NRCS PLANTS Database 2009).
Fire: Some plants survive fire and regrow from the crown. Populations also regenerate from seed in 3-7 years (Patterson et al 1985).
Highly fire resistant because the growing point is at or below the soil surface. Late spring fires are the most damaging. Regenerates from the crows and form seed (Simonin 2000).
Hazards:
Sowing time: spring or fall
Transplant time: spring
Stratification: none
Seed yield: low
Seed harvest: medium difficulty
Seed first harvest: second season
Seed cleaning: easy
Planting duration: moderate
Seed insect problem: none noted
Seed shatter: medium
Seed size: small
Seed harvest date: early July
Seed comments:
Key words: native perennial upland grass
Alternate Genus:
Alternate Species: cristata
Alternate Variety:
Notes:
References:
Arnow, Lois A. 1994.
Koeleria macrantha and
K. pyramidata (Poaceae): Nomenclatural Problems and Biological Distinctions. Systematic Botany 19:6-20.
Arnow, Lois A. 1994. Erratum: Koeleria macrantha and K. pyramidata (Poaceae): Nomenclatural Problems and Biological Distinctions. Systematic Botany 19:485-486.
Patterson, Patricia A, Kenneth E. Neiman, and Jonalea R. Tonn. 1985. Field Guide to Forest Plants of Northern Idaho. USDA Forest Service Intermountain Research Station. General Technical Report INT-180. Ogden, Utah.
Pocewicz, Amy. 2005. Host Plants of Palouse Butterfly Species. 2 page handout to accompany the April 2005 presentation to the Palouse Prairie Foundation.
Robertson, Philip A. 1974. Morphological variation and chromsome numbers of North American populations of Koeleria cristata. Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club 101:124-129.
Robertson, Philip A. 1976. Photosynthetic and Respiratory Responses to Natural Populations of Koeleria cristata Grown in Three Environmental Regimes. Botanical Gazette 137:94-98.
Robertson, Philip A., and Richard T. Ward. 1970. Ecotypic Differentiation in Koeleria cristata (L.) Pers. from Colorado and Related Area. Ecology 51:1083-1087.
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.
Simonin, Kevin. 2000. Koeleria macrantha. 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, October 18].
Standley, Lisa A. 2002. Koeleria Pers. In: Barkworth, Mary, 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/
USDA NRCS. 2009. The PLANTS Database (http://plants.usda.gov, 19 October 2009). National Plant Data Center, Baton Rouge, LA 70874-4490 USA.