| Bottlebrush grass | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Inflorescences | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Plantae |
| Clade: | Tracheophytes |
| Clade: | Angiosperms |
| Clade: | Monocots |
| Clade: | Commelinids |
| Order: | Poales |
| Family: | Poaceae |
| Subfamily: | Pooideae |
| Genus: | Elymus |
| Species: | E. hystrix |
| Binomial name | |
| Elymus hystrix | |
| Synonyms | |
Hystrix patulaMoench | |
Elymus hystrix, known as eastern bottlebrush grass, [1] or bottle-brush-grass, [2] is a bunchgrass in the grass family, Poaceae. It is native to the Eastern United States and Eastern Canada.
Elymus hystrix is a herbaceous plant with alternate, simple leaves, on erect stems. The flowers are white and bloom in spring. Elymus hystrix ranges from approximately two and a half to four and a half feet in height. There are usually two spikelets at each of the five to nine nodes of the plant. Unlike some similar native grasses, the blades of Elymus hystrix do not have glumes surrounding its spikelets. [3]
Elymus hystrix is self-compatible; that is, it can reproduce using its own pollen. [4] Elymus hystrix is a perennial meaning it does not completely die at the end of each season, but comes back the next year. [4]
Elymus hystrix has four copies of its genome, exhibiting a type of polyploidy called tetraploidy. [3]
Elymus hystrix was first described by Carl Linnaeus in 1753. It was transferred to the new genus Hystrix as the type species Hystrix patula by Conrad Moench in 1794. Genomic studies from the 1960s onwards showed that it does in fact belong in Elymus. [5]
Elymus hystrix is found in the United States east of the Great Plains as well as in Eastern Canada. [6] It is usually found in rocky, wet, and partially shaded habitat such as near rivers, creeks, or woods. [3] Elymus hystrix does not grow well in heavily shaded areas [7] and often inhabits the regions on the edge of shaded wooded areas such as forests. [7] Growth of Elymus hystrix appears to be inhibited by excess shade, but is relatively resistant to soil compaction when compared to other herbaceous plant species. [7]
Mus musculus, or mice, feed on Elymus seeds. [8] It is reasonable that through domestication and enhancement of seed size and nutritional value seeds of Elymus hystrix could be useful for consumption by other vertebrates such as humans. Similar species of grasses are eaten by livestock throughout the United States. [9] Other Elymus species have been found to be high in crude protein when compared to other native grasses, but research is needed to investigate whether specifically Elymus hystrix also exhibits this trait. [9] It is also not immediately evident how nutritious the herbaceous grassy portion of the plant would be to humans, but potential for Elymus hystrix as a food source for livestock is also of interest.
It is a larval host to the northern pearly eye. [10]
 | Wikimedia Commons has media related to Elymus hystrix . |
Data related to Elymus hystrix at Wikispecies
Poaceae or Gramineae is a large and nearly ubiquitous family of monocotyledonous flowering plants commonly known as grasses. It includes the cereal grasses, bamboos and the grasses of natural grassland and species cultivated in lawns and pasture. The latter are commonly referred to collectively as grass.
Hordeum is a genus of annual and perennial plants in the grass family. They are native throughout the temperate regions of Africa, Eurasia, and the Americas.
Elymus repens, commonly known as couch grass, is a very common perennial species of grass native to most of Europe, Asia, the Arctic biome, and northwest Africa. It has been brought into other mild northern climates for forage or erosion control, but is often considered a weed.
Panicum (panicgrass) is a large genus of about 450 species of grasses native throughout the tropical regions of the world, with a few species extending into the northern temperate zone. They are often large, annual or perennial grasses, growing to 1–3 m tall.
Aegilops is a genus of Eurasian and North American plants in the grass family, Poaceae. They are known generally as goatgrasses. Some species are known as invasive weeds in parts of North America.
Bouteloua gracilis, the blue grama, is a long-lived, warm-season (C4) perennial grass, native to North America.
Lolium perenne, common name perennial ryegrass, English ryegrass, winter ryegrass, or ray grass, is a grass from the family Poaceae. It is native to Europe, Asia and northern Africa, but is widely cultivated and naturalised around the world.
Triticeae is a botanical tribe within the subfamily Pooideae of grasses that includes genera with many domesticated species. Major crop genera found in this tribe include wheat, barley, and rye; crops in other genera include some for human consumption, and others used for animal feed or rangeland protection. Among the world's cultivated species, this tribe has some of the most complex genetic histories. An example is bread wheat, which contains the genomes of three species with only one being a wheat Triticum species. Seed storage proteins in the Triticeae are implicated in various food allergies and intolerances.
Hordeum pusillum, also known as little barley, is an annual grass native to most of the United States and southwestern Canada. It arrived via multiple long-distance dispersals of a southern South American species of Hordeum about one million years ago. Its closest relatives are therefore not the other North American taxa like meadow barley or foxtail barley, but rather Hordeum species of the pampas of central Argentina and Uruguay. It is less closely related to the Old World domesticated barley, from which it diverged about 12 million years ago. It is diploid.
Elymus elymoides is a species of wild rye known by the common name squirreltail. This grass is native to most of North America west of the Mississippi River and occurs in a number of ecosystems, from the alpine zone to desert sage scrub to valley grassland.
Festuca perennis is a ryegrass native to temperate Europe, though its precise native range is unknown.
Elymus trachycaulus is a species of wild rye known by the common name slender wheatgrass. It is native to much of North America. It grows in widely varied habitats from northern Canada to Mexico, but is absent from most of the southeastern United States.
Elymus hoffmannii is a species of grass known by the common name RS wheatgrass. It was described as a new species in 1996. It became known to science when some grasses were collected in Turkey in 1979 and one type was successfully bred out, proving to be a natural hybrid. E. hoffmannii is derived from this hybrid between Elymus repens and the bluebunch wheatgrasses of Turkey, such as Pseudoroegneria spicata.
Elymus wawawaiensis is a species of grass known by the common name Snake River wheatgrass. It is native to western North America, where it occurs in the Pacific Northwest. It is native to eastern Washington and Oregon and parts of Idaho.
Hystrix was a formerly recognized genus of grass.
Eragrostis pilosa is a species of grass. It is native to Eurasia and Africa. It may or may not be native to North America. It is widely introduced, and it is a common weed in many areas.
Festuca gautieri, commonly known as spiky fescue or bearskin fescue, is a species of flowering plant in the grass family, Poaceae, native to the Pyrenees. It is a commonly cultivated evergreen or semi-evergreen herbaceous perennial, and, as a native to European alpine areas, it is a small, low-growing Festuca suitable for rock gardens.
Elymus svensonii, commonly called Svenson's wildrye, is a species of flowering plant in the grass family (Poaceae). It is native to United States, where it is endemic to the Interior Low Plateau of Kentucky and Tennessee. Its natural habitat is on dry, rocky, limestone river bluffs.
Rottboellia cochinchinensis is a species of grass known by the common names Itchgrass,Raoul grass, corngrass, Kokoma grass, Guinea-fowl grass, jointed grass, Shamwa grass and Kelly grass. It is a tall, tufted annual grass whose stems (culms) grow up to 3 metres in height with leaf-blades of up to 45 centimetres in length. The species flowers at the apex of culms in the form of spike-like racemes composed of paired spikelets. The common name Itchgrass comes from the bristly (hispid) leaf-sheath which can be irritating to the skin.
Yi-Li Keng was a Chinese botanist, specializing in the study of grasses, particularly the tribe Triticeae of the Poaceae.
