Elymus glaucus

Blue or western wild-rye, Western Wild-Rye

Family: Poaceae · Type: perennial · Native

Blue or western wild-rye is a native perennial grass found in diverse California bioregions, including coastal, Sierra Nevada, and Cascade Mountains, in grasslands, meadows, and open woodlands at elevations ranging from low to mid-elevation zones. Flowering from May to July, this grass produces pale green to bluish-green spikelets with delicate, divergent awns in compact, erect or slightly nodding seed heads. Growing 3 to 4.5 meters tall with slender, sometimes short-rhizomed stems, it forms dense, upright clumps with graceful, arching leaves. Its leaves are flat, 4 to 12 millimeters wide, with short auricles and ligules less than 1 millimeter long, presenting a fine-textured, soft green appearance. The grass bears spikelets with 2 to 4 florets, featuring glumes 6.5 to 19 millimeters long that are generally short-awned, creating an elegant, wave-like profile in grassland landscapes.

California counties: Humboldt, Calaveras, Ventura, El Dorado, Los Angeles, Inyo, San Luis Obispo, Plumas, Marin, Mendocino, Placer, Riverside, Tulare, Mariposa, Del Norte, Sutter, San Bernardino, Lake, Solano, Fresno, Sonoma, Orange, Kern, Monterey, Napa, Amador, Santa Cruz, Siskiyou, Trinity, Nevada, Sierra, Santa Clara, Butte, San Mateo, San Francisco, Tuolumne, Modoc, Alpine, Contra Costa, San Diego, Santa Barbara, Madera, Shasta, Colusa, Sacramento, Yuba, Alameda, Lassen, Glenn, Tehama, Stanislaus, Merced, San Benito, Yolo, San Joaquin, Mono

Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.