''Leymus innovatus'' is a species of

grass 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 an ...

known as downy ryegrass, boreal wildrye, hairy wildrye, fuzzyspike wildrye, northern wildrye, and northwestern wildrye. It is native to northern North America from

Alaska Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S., ...

to eastern Canada and south to

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of t ...

.Williams, T. Y. 1990
''Leymus innovatus''.
In: Fire Effects Information System, nline U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, Fire Sciences Laboratory.''Leymus innovatus''.
Grass Manual Treatment.

Description

This perennial grass reproduces by seed or by spreading via its

rhizome In botany and dendrology, a rhizome (; , ) is a modified subterranean plant stem that sends out roots and shoots from its nodes. Rhizomes are also called creeping rootstalks or just rootstalks. Rhizomes develop from axillary buds and grow hori ...

s. The stems grow up to about 80 to 105 centimeters tall. The

inflorescence An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches. Morphologically, it is the modified part of the shoot of seed plants where flowers are formed o ...

is a spike up to 16 centimeters long by 2 wide, with spikelets in pairs or threes.

Ecology

This grass is often a

dominant species Ecological dominance is the degree to which one or several species have a major influence controlling the other species in their ecological community (because of their large size, population, productivity, or related factors) or make up more of ...

in the

understory In forestry and ecology, understory (American English), or understorey (Commonwealth English), also known as underbrush or undergrowth, includes plant life growing beneath the forest canopy without penetrating it to any great extent, but abov ...

lodgepole pine ''Pinus contorta'', with the common names lodgepole pine and shore pine, and also known as twisted pine, and contorta pine, is a common tree in western North America. It is common near the ocean shore and in dry montane forests to the subalpine, ...

forests. It commonly grows with other plant species such as russet buffaloberry (''Shepherdia canadensis''), bluejoint reedgrass (''Calamagrostis canadensis''), rough fescue (''Festuca altaica''),

jack pine Jack pine (''Pinus banksiana'') is an eastern North American pine. Its native range in Canada is east of the Rocky Mountains from the Mackenzie River in the Northwest Territories to Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia, and the north-central and ...

(''Pinus banksiana''), and

white spruce White spruce is a common name for several species of spruce (''Picea'') and may refer to: * ''Picea glauca'', native to most of Canada and Alaska with limited populations in the northeastern United States * ''Picea engelmannii'', native to the Ro ...

(''Picea glauca'').

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q6538093 innovatus Grasses of Canada Grasses of the United States