Koeleria macrantha

June grass

Family: Poaceae · Type: perennial · Native

June grass is a California native perennial found in northwestern California, the Cascade Range, Sierra Nevada, Sutter Buttes, central western California, Transverse Ranges, Peninsular Ranges, Great Basin, and desert mountains in dry, open sites with clay to rocky soils, including shrubland, woodland, and conifer forest at elevations up to 3,840 meters. Flowering from May to July, this plant produces tan to occasionally purple-tinged spikelets in compact, cylindrical inflorescences 2 to 15 centimeters long. Growing in dense tufts with erect stems 20 to 80 centimeters tall, it forms distinctive clumps with glabrous to slightly hairy stems. Its primarily basal leaves are tightly clustered, with narrow blades 2 to 20 centimeters long and 1 to 3 millimeters wide, typically with a ridged surface. The delicate spikelets are 4 to 6 millimeters long, with 2 to 4 small florets per spikelet.

Habitat: Dry, open sites, clay to rocky soils, shrubland, woodland, conifer forest

Bloom period: May-Jul

Elevation: < 3840 m

Bioregions: NW, CaR, SN, ScV (Sutter Buttes), CW, TR, PR, GB, DMtns

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

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