Phalaris lemmonii

Lemmon's canary grass

Family: Poaceae · Type: annual · Native

Lemmon's canary grass is a California native annual grass found in northern Sierra Nevada Foothill, Sierra Nevada, Great Valley, San Francisco Bay Area, south Coast Ranges, southern California Coast, western Transverse Ranges, Peninsular Ranges, and desert mountains in moist areas with occasional flooding, scrub, and woodland at elevations below 700 meters. Flowering from April to June, this plant produces pale green to white flowers in dense cylindrical clusters 4 to 20 centimeters long and 0.7 to 1.5 centimeters wide. Growing with upright stems 50 to 150 centimeters tall, it has an occasionally branched or lobed grass structure. Its spikelet glumes are lanceolate with acute tips, featuring scabrous veins and densely hairy sterile lemmas. The fertile lemma is lanceolate to ovoid with a slightly beaked tip, measuring 4 to 5 millimeters long.

Habitat: Generally moist areas with occasionally flooding, scrub, woodland

Bloom period: Apr-Jun

Elevation: < 700 m

Bioregions: n SNF, n&amps SNH, GV, SnFrB, SCoR, SCo, WTR, PR, DMoj

California counties: Marin, Contra Costa, Solano, Sacramento, El Dorado, Merced, Sutter, Alameda, Orange, Yolo, San Diego, San Joaquin, Riverside, Los Angeles, Ventura, Butte, Glenn, Tulare, San Benito, Placer, San Luis Obispo, Mendocino, Santa Barbara, Colusa, Fresno, Madera, Monterey, Santa Clara, Sonoma, Santa Cruz, Stanislaus, Napa, Calaveras, San Mateo, Kern, San Francisco, Amador

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