Elymus hispidus

Intermediate wheatgrass

Family: Poaceae · Type: perennial · Not Native

Intermediate wheatgrass is a naturalized perennial found in the Klamath Ranges, northern California coastal ranges, Cascade Range, Sierra Nevada, western Transverse Ranges, San Bernardino Mountains, Peninsular Ranges, Modoc Plateau, and desert mountains in open areas and on slopes at elevations below 2,500 meters. Flowering from June to August, this grass produces pale green to green spikelets 11 to 18 millimeters long with erect or nodding flower clusters. Growing with rhizomatous stems 50 to 115 centimeters tall, the plant can be glabrous or slightly hairy with multiple stems. Its leaves have wide blades 2 to 8 millimeters across with prominent veins and small auricles less than 2 millimeters long. The spikelets contain 3 to 10 florets with lemmas 7.5 to 10 millimeters long, typically without awns.

Habitat: Open areas, slopes

Bloom period: Jun-Aug

Elevation: < 2500 m

Bioregions: KR, NCoRI (Yolo Co.), CaR, SN, WTR, SnBr, PR, MP, DMtns

California counties: Los Angeles, Kern, Riverside, San Bernardino, Orange, Mono, Alpine, Fresno, Plumas, Butte, Alameda, Siskiyou, Humboldt, San Diego, Trinity, Tulare, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Tehama, Santa Clara

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