Elymus glaucus, blue wildrye



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Intermountain Flora
Green to glaucous, loose to densely tufted perennials, sometimes short stoloniferous; culms (6) 8-14 dm tall; leaves scattered along the culm; sheaths glabrous, retrorsely puberulent or pilose, the collar often purple; lingules short, 0.3-1 mm long, truncate, erose-ciliolate or sometimes entire; blades flat to sometimes slightly involute, 4-12 mm broad, mostly scabrous or sparsely pilose, sometimes glabrous below, the auricles mostly well developed, about 2 mm long and clasping the culm; spikes 6-16 cm long (measurement not including the awns), erect, somewhat loose or interrupted below and overlapping above or dense throughout, long-exserted; spikelets mostly 2 per node, 10-16 mm long, 2- to 3- (4)-flowered; glumes subequal, (6.5) 9-14 (19) mm long, narrow-lanceolate, broadest above the base, 3- to 5- nerved, almost parallel and concealing the base of the enclosed florets, glabrous to scabrous, tapering into a short awn, sometimes slightly indurate at the base but membranous above; lemmas 8.5-12 (14) mm long, 5-nerved above, glabrous to scabrous on the nerves, tapering into a long, slender and mostly straight, rarely spreading awn (10) 14-22 (30) mm long; anthers relatively small, 1.7-3 mm long; 2n = 28.

Cronquist, A., Holmgren, A.H., Holmgren, N.H., Reveal, J.L., and Holmgren, P.K. (1977) "Intermountain Flora" pg. 306, vol. 6, The New York Botanical Garden New York.