Relatives
Calamagrostis epigeios (L.)Roth. - Wood Small-reed, Bushgrass, Redd Bent.
Taxonomic position.
Family Poaceae Barnhart, genus Calamagrostis Adans.Synonyms.
Arundo epigeios (L.) Roth.Morphology and biology.
Perennial plant 80-160 cm tall, with long rhizomes, with numerous sheaths of dead leaves at base. Culms with 2 distant nodes, straight, robust. Leaves usually broad (up to 10 mm) and flat, or narrow and convolute, grey-green, rigid, scabrous. Panicles up to 30 cm long, 1.5-6 cm wide, dense, covered with fine spinules, with short branchlets declining from inflorescence axis during and after flowering. Spikelets 5-7 mm long, narrow-lanceolate, greenish or violet. Glumes subequal to each other, long-subulately attenuate at apex, cristately scabrous on keel. Lemma 1.5-2 times shorter than glumes, almost entirely membranaceous, callus with hairs almost twice as long as lemma, lemma back with straight thin awn rising from the lemma middle. Rachilla rudiment missing. Apomict. Flowers in June, fruits in July. 2n=42, 56.Distribution.
European part of the former USSR, Caucasus, Central Asia, Siberia (except for the northeastern), Far East.Ecology.
In meadows, thinned forests, among shrubberies, on sands and shingles.Use and economic value.
Rough forage grass of rather low quality.References:
Grossheim AA. 1939. Flora of Caucasus. 2nd ed. V.1. 402 p. (In Russian).Shelyag-Sosonko YuR., ed. Grasses of Ukraine. 1977. Kiev: Naukova Dumka. 518 p. (In Russian).
Kovalevskaya SS., ed. 1968. Manual of plants of Middle Asia. V.1. Tashkent. 226 p. (In Russian).
Kharkevich SS., ed. 1985. Vascular plants of the Soviet Far East. V.1. Leningrad: Nauka. 398 p. (In Russian).
Fedorov AA., ed. 1974. Flora of the European part of the USSR. V.1. Leningrad: Nauka. 404 p. (In Russian).
Pavlov NV., ed. 1956. Flora of Kazakhstan. V.1. Alma-Ata. 354 p. (In Russian).
Rozhevits RYu., Shishkin BK., eds. 1934. Flora URSS. V.2. 778 p. (In Russian).
Malyshev LI., Peshkova GA., eds. 1990. Flora of Siberia. V.4. Poaceae (Gramineae). Novosibirsk: Nauka. 361 p. (In Russian).
Malyshev LI., Peshkova GA., eds. 1979. Flora of the Central Siberia. V.1. 536 p. (In Russian).
Tzvelev NN. 1976. Grasses of the Soviet Union. Leningrad: Nauka. 788 p. (In Russian).
Hulten E., Fries M. 1986. Atlas of North European vascular plants north of the Tropic of Cancer. V.1-3. Konigstein: Koeltz Scientific Books.