Melica stricta

Rock melic, Rock Melic

Family: Poaceae · Type: perennial · Native

Rock melic is a California native perennial grass found in the Klamath Ranges, northern California Coast Ranges, Cascade Range, Sierra Nevada, Tehachapi Mountains, southern Coast Ranges, Transverse Ranges, Warner Mountains, eastern Sierra Nevada, and desert mountains in open sites, conifer forest, and rocky alpine areas at elevations of 1,200 to 3,350 meters. Flowering from June to August, this grass produces small spikelets in tight, V-shaped clusters with translucent spreading glumes. Growing in dense tufts with stems 10 to 90 centimeters tall, it forms compact clumps without underground corms. Its leaf blades are narrow, measuring 1.5 to 5 millimeters wide, with ligules 2.5 to 5 millimeters long. The spikelets contain 2 to 4 florets, with lemmas 8 to 16 millimeters long and lacking awns.

Habitat: Open sites, conifer forest, rocky areas in alpine

Bloom period: Jun-Aug

Elevation: 1200-3350 m

Bioregions: KR, NCoRH, CaR, SNH, Teh, s SCoR, TR, Wrn, SNE, DMtns

California counties: Fresno, Mono, Sierra, Tulare, Inyo, San Bernardino, Los Angeles, Nevada, Ventura, Alpine, Tehama, Kern, Mariposa, Glenn, Madera, Modoc, Trinity, Tuolumne, San Diego, Amador, Butte, El Dorado, Humboldt, Lassen, Placer, Santa Barbara, Plumas, Mendocino, Lake, San Benito, Siskiyou, San Francisco

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