Single-flowered pearl grass

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Single-flowered pearl grass
Single-flowered pearl grass (Melica uniflora)

Single-flowered pearl grass ( Melica uniflora )

Systematics
Commelinids
Order : Sweet grass (Poales)
Family : Sweet grasses (Poaceae)
Subfamily : Pooideae
Genre : Pearl grass ( Melica )
Type : Single-flowered pearl grass
Scientific name
Melica uniflora
Retz.

The single-flowered pearl grass ( Melica uniflora ) is a species of the sweet grass family (Poaceae).

description

The single-flowered pearl grass has a creeping basic axis with long runners . From these stems 30 to 45 centimeters high go out. The above-ground parts die off in winter, the buds form on the underground shoots. The simple leaves are fresh green, thin and limp. The leaf sheaths are fused, the ligules ring-shaped. On the uppermost leaf, the ligule elongates along the stalk on the side facing away from the leaf blade .

Stem with foliage and ligule. Opposite the ligule there is a pointed appendage lying close to the stem.
inflorescence
Spikelets with glumes (Glu), a fertile flower enveloped in lemma (Lem) and palea (Pal) and an elaiosome (Ela).
Spikelets

The panicle is open and has long, upright branches. These have a few large spikelets . At their husks the domed, red-brown fall Glumes , while the lemmas are colored green. Each spikelet has only two flowers, a lower hermaphrodite and an upper sterile one. The husks of the sterile flower have grown together to form a bulbous body. The flowering period extends from May to June.

The number of chromosomes is 2n = 18.

ecology

The grain ripens in summer and falls out of the glumes together with the sterile flower. The husks of this flower contain oil, which is consumed by ants and thus contributes to myrmecochory .

Similar species

It differs from the similar nodding pearl grass ( Melica nutans ) and the colored pearl grass ( Melica picta ) mainly in the upright spikelets and the spreading panicle. The eyelash pearl grass ( Melica ciliata ) and the Transylvanian pearl grass ( Melica transsilvanica ) have a considerably denser, rounded panicle and lemmas that are long ciliate on the edge.

Occurrence

The single-flowered pearl grass is widespread in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East , but is absent in Portugal, southern Spain, northern Scandinavia and Russia. It is usually quite common in Germany, but is absent in the southeast, for example. In Austria it occurs in Vienna, Lower Austria, Burgenland and Styria. It grows on fresh to moderately dry, nutrient-rich and alkaline-rich, mostly low-lime or decalcified, neutral to moderately acidic, loose to compacted, humus-rich, sandy-stony or pure, medium-sized to deep loamy soils. In old beech forests it sometimes forms large carpets if the trees let in enough light. It's a clay pointer. It is a characteristic of the pearl grass beech forest (Melico-Fagetum), but also occurs in other societies of the associations Carpinion or Quercion pubescentis and is altogether a Querco-Fagetea class character.

literature

  • Mogens Skytte Christiansen: grasses. Sweet grasses, sour grasses and rushes (BLV determination book), 4th edition, Munich, Vienna, BLV 1993, ISBN 3-405-13615-6
  • Erich Oberdorfer : Plant-sociological excursion flora for Germany and neighboring areas . 8th edition, Stuttgart, Eugen Ulmer, 2001 ISBN 3-8001-3131-5 .
  • Ruprecht Düll , Herfried Kutzelnigg : Pocket dictionary of plants in Germany and neighboring countries. The most common Central European species in portrait . 7th, corrected and enlarged edition. Quelle & Meyer, Wiebelsheim 2011, ISBN 978-3-494-01424-1 . (Occurrence section)

Individual evidence

  1. a b c Erich Oberdorfer : Plant-sociological excursion flora for Germany and neighboring areas . 8th edition. Stuttgart, Verlag Eugen Ulmer, 2001. ISBN 3-8001-3131-5 . Page 228.
  2. Rafaël Govaerts (ed.): Melica uniflora. In: World Checklist of Selected Plant Families (WCSP) - The Board of Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew . Retrieved May 25, 2020.
  3. G. Hegi, Illustrierte Flora von Mitteleuropa, 2nd edition, volume 1. Carl Hanser Verlag, Munich 1965
  4. ^ Manfred A. Fischer , Karl Oswald, Wolfgang Adler: Excursion flora for Austria, Liechtenstein and South Tyrol. 3rd, improved edition. State of Upper Austria, Biology Center of the Upper Austrian State Museums, Linz 2008, ISBN 978-3-85474-187-9 .

Web links

Commons : Single Flower Perlgrass  album with pictures, videos and audio files