Melica imperfecta
Little california melica, Little California Melica
Family: Poaceae · Type: perennial · Native
Little california melica is a California native perennial found in northern Coast Ranges, central and southern Sierra Nevada, Sutter Buttes, central Western California, southwestern California, and desert mountains in dry rocky hillsides, chaparral, and woodland at elevations below 1,500 meters. Flowering from April to May, this plant produces delicate light-colored spikelets 3 to 7 millimeters long with subtle green to tan flowers. Growing with slender stems 35 to 120 centimeters tall without a corm, it develops sparse branching inflorescences 5 to 36 centimeters long. Its leaf blades are narrow, measuring 1 to 6 millimeters wide with short ligules 0.8 to 6.5 millimeters long. The plant's lemmas are 3 to 7 millimeters long, glabrous or slightly scabrous, with acute to obtuse tips.
Habitat: dry rocky hillsides, chaparral, woodland
Bloom period: Apr-May
Elevation: < 1500 m
Bioregions: NCoRI, c&s SN, ScV (Sutter Buttes), CW, SW, DMoj
California counties: San Luis Obispo, Fresno, San Bernardino, San Diego, Los Angeles, Kern, Orange, Riverside, Ventura, Tulare, Santa Cruz, Monterey, Santa Barbara, Inyo, Imperial, San Mateo, Santa Clara, San Benito, Alameda, San Francisco, Tuolumne, Contra Costa, Calaveras, Lake, Madera, Sutter, Mariposa, Marin, Merced, Napa, Trinity, Sonoma, Amador, Nevada, El Dorado, Alpine, Sierra, Solano, Stanislaus, Glenn, Yolo
Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.