Tall pearl grass
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Tall pearl grass ( Melica altissima ) |
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The high pearl grass ( Melica altissima ) is a species from the genus of pearl grass ( Melica ) and belongs to the sweet grass family .
description
The high pearl grass is persistent and has long subterranean runners; the stalks reach heights of 40 to 150 cm. The leaves are 5 to 15 mm wide and flat; the ligule is ovate and 3 to 5 mm long.
The dense panicle, which is 10 to 20 cm long and is often somewhat interrupted at the base, is characteristic of the species. Below the panicle, the stalk of barbed hair is rough. The spikelet stalks are short and strongly curved in the upper part. The spikelets are 7 to 12 mm long, partially nodding and contain 2 fertile and several sterile florets. The glumes are ovate, obtuse and almost equal to each other. The lemmas of the fertile floret are 7 to 11 mm long, ovate, but pointed, with a broad skin margin and 9 to 13-nerved.
The number of chromosomes is 2n = 18. The species blooms in May and June.
Occurrence
The distribution area of this type of Eurosiberian forest-steppe vegetation extends from Slovakia and Hungary eastwards into the Central Asian mountains to Kyrgyzstan in the south and to the Chinese Xinjiang in the east. In the area of the Caucasus it occurs southwards to eastern Anatolia and the north-western Iranian province of Azerbaijan . In the case of occurrences in Lower Austria and in Eastern Bohemia in the Czech Republic, it is unclear whether they are indigenous exclaves on the western edge of the area or overgrown from garden culture.
The species has been cultivated as an ornamental plant since the 18th century. It tends to grow wild and appears in Germany as a locally naturalized neophyte , for example in Perlesreut in Lower Bavaria .
The high pearl grass grows on clay, loess and loamy gravel soils in dry forests and on heat-affected forest and shrubbery fringes, but also occurs in semi-ruderal locations in vineyards and in black locust stands .
Systematics
The tall pearl grass is placed in the subgenus Melica together with the Asian species Melica turczaninowiana Ohwi and Melica schafkati Bondarenko in the Altimelica W.Hempel section.
Melica altissima was first published in 1753 by Carl von Linné in Species Plantarum . A synonym is Melica sibirica Lam. As Melica altissima L. var. Atropurpurea Papp plants are referred to violet colored glumes that are used as ornamental plants taxonomically but are meaningless.
The Latin epithet "altissima" means "the highest", which obviously refers to the considerable height of this species.
literature
- Hans Joachim Conert: Melica. In: Hans Joachim Conert (ed.): Illustrated flora of Central Europe . Founded by Gustav Hegi. 3rd, completely revised edition. Volume I. Part 3: Spermatophyta: Angiospermae: Monocotyledones 1 (2). Poaceae (real grasses or sweet grasses) . Parey Buchverlag, Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-8263-2868-X , p. 460–461 (published 1979–1998).
- Thomas Gaskell Tutin : Melica L. In: TG Tutin, VH Heywood, NA Burges, DM Moore, DH Valentine, SM Walters, DA Webb (eds.): Flora Europaea . Volume 5: Alismataceae to Orchidaceae (Monocotyledones) . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1980, ISBN 0-521-20108-X , pp. 178–179 (English, limited preview in Google Book Search).
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f g h Werner Hempel : Revision and phylogeny of the species of the genus Melica L. (Poaceae) in Eurasia and North Africa. In: Fedde's repertory. Volume 122, No. 1–2, pp. 1–253, DOI: 10.1002 / fedr.201100029 .
- ^ Zhen-lan Wu, Sylvia M. Phillips: Melica. In: Wu Zheng-yi, Peter H. Raven, Deyuan Hong (Eds.): Flora of China . Volume 22: Poaceae . Science Press / Missouri Botanical Garden Press, Beijing / St. Louis 2006, ISBN 1-930723-50-4 , pp. 221 (English). , PDF file , online.
- ↑ Tall Perlgrass. In: FloraWeb.de.
- ↑ Carl von Linné: Species Plantarum. Volume 1, Impensis Laurentii Salvii, Holmiae 1753, p. 66, digitized
