Melica geyeri
Geyer's oniongrass
Family: Poaceae · Type: perennial · Native
Geyer's oniongrass is a California native perennial found in the Klamath Ranges, northern Coast Ranges, California Ranges, northern Sierra Nevada, San Francisco Bay Area, and northern South Coast Ranges in dry open slopes, oak woodland, and conifer forest at elevations below 2,200 meters. Flowering from April to July, this grass produces delicate spikelets 8 to 24 millimeters long with spreading to reflexed branches. Growing with stems 80 to 200 centimeters tall, it develops sessile corms and forms short to long rhizomes. Its leaves have ligules 2 to 3.5 millimeters long and blades 2 to 8 millimeters wide, with basal leaf sheaths becoming fibrous over time. The plant produces 2 to 6 bisexual florets with lemmas 8 to 11 millimeters long, occasionally featuring a short awn up to 2 millimeters.
Habitat: dry open slopes, oak woodland, conifer forest
Bloom period: Apr-Jul
Elevation: < 2200 m
Bioregions: KR, NCoR, CaRH, n&c SNH, SnFrB, n SCoRO
California counties: Mendocino, Sonoma, Glenn, Lake, Del Norte, Napa, Santa Cruz, Humboldt, Plumas, San Luis Obispo, Alameda, Marin, Monterey, San Mateo, Butte, Placer, Santa Clara, Sierra, Siskiyou, Trinity, El Dorado, Mariposa, San Francisco, Tehama, Nevada, Shasta, Tuolumne, Inyo
Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.