Publication: Mant. 2: 345. 1824.

Origin: Native

Herbarium search: CPNWH

Notes: FNA24: "Koeleria macrantha is widely distributed in temperate regions of North America and Eurasia. In North America, it grows in semi-arid to mesic conditions, on dry prairies or in grassy woods, generally in sandy soil, from sea level to 3900 m. It differs from Sphenopholis intermedia, with which it is frequently confused, in its less open panicles, and in having spikelets that disarticulate above the glumes.

The species is treated here as a polymorphic, polyploid complex. North American plants have sometimes been treated as a separate species, Koeleria nitida Nutt., but no morphological characters for distinguishing them from Eurasian members of the complex are known (Greuter 1968). Some plants from Oregon and Washington have densely pubescent culms, and high-elevation populations from western North America often are densely cespitose, with very short culms and purple leaves and inflorescences, but both variants appear to intergrade with more typical plants."

Last updated 5/9/2020 by David Giblin.