Eyelash Perlgrass

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Eyelash Perlgrass
Eyelash pearl grass (Melica ciliata)

Eyelash pearl grass ( Melica ciliata )

Systematics
Commelinids
Order : Sweet grass (Poales)
Family : Sweet grasses (Poaceae)
Subfamily : Pooideae
Genre : Pearl grass ( Melica )
Type : Eyelash Perlgrass
Scientific name
Melica ciliata
L.

The eyelash pearl grass ( Melica ciliata ) is a sweet grass (Poaceae) that grows preferentially in warm places. It characterizes dry heaths and especially the steppes of the southeastern European area. A conspicuous feature of this grass are the eyelashes of the lemmas that are clearly visible hanging out of the spikelets during flowering. Often grown in gardens because of its attractive inflorescences.

description

inflorescence
Stem with foliage and ligule. The leaf sheaths of the basal leaves are bare.
The inflorescence is a "panicle": the spikelets sit on branched stems.
Spikelets with glumes (Glu) and fertile flowers with cover (Lem) and palea (Pal). The lemma is densely hairy and silky.

The eyelash pearl grass is a perennial and deciduous plant that forms dense and richly leafy clumps . The hemicryptophyte reaches heights of between 30 and 60 centimeters. The stalks, which are rough above the inflorescences, grow stiffly upright. The leaves are gray-green. The rigid leaf blades are up to 25 centimeters long and between 3 and 4 millimeters wide. They are usually spread out flat, often rolled up like bristles when it is dry. The leaf sheaths are glabrous and have no ears. The ligule measures between 2 and 3 millimeters in length. They are blunt and mostly torn.

The inflorescence is an upright and indistinct one-sided panicle . The panicle branches lying on the flower axis or slightly splaying out are short. The 6 to 7 millimeters long spikelets are two-flowered. One of these is mostly sterile and stunted to a piston-shaped residue. The glumes, which are whitish after flowering, are roughly the same length, rough and not awned. The seven- to nine- veined lemmas of the sterile flowers are also whitish at the time of fruiting and are glabrous. Those of the fertile flowers, on the other hand, have long shaggy eyelashes, which both the scientific and the German name refer to. The eyelashes hang out of the spikelets during flowering. The flowering period extends from June to July.

The chromosome number 2n = 18 was found for all subspecies.

ecology

The eyelash pearlgrass is a hemicryptophyte . Through the long-haired lemmas, the false fruits are spread out as umbrella fliers.

Distribution and location

The eyelash pearl grass is widespread throughout Europe with the exception of the north, with a focus on warm regions and in North Africa. Its area extends in the east via Turkey and the Caucasus to Kazakhstan and even as far as northwestern China, where it is primarily at home in the steppes. It also occurs from the Mediterranean region to Iran and Madeira. In Central Europe it reaches its north-western border in the Rhine Valley . It is quite rare in Germany. It colonizes open, gappy and always very sunny stone rubble and rock corridors on dry, alkaline and mostly calcareous soils on slopes and in dry grassland.

According to Ellenberg , it is a light plant, a heat pointer, distributed sub-oceanic, a weak acid to weak base pointer and an association character of the white fescue rock band corridors (Festucion pallentis).

Systematics

The eyelash pearl grass was first published in 1753 by Carl von Linné in Species Plantarum .

It is divided into four subspecies, which in turn can be further divided into varieties:

  • Melica ciliata subsp. ciliata : The stalk hangs slightly when it is fruiting. The panicle is unbranched. The lower glume is significantly shorter than the lower glume, which, like both glumes, is bright purple or completely yellow in the nerve space. This south-eastern European subspecies extends from Moravia and Austria ( Styria , Carinthia , Lower Austria , Burgenland ) to Macedonia and Bulgaria , Moldova and western Ukraine . There are also relic deposits on the Baltic coast of southern Sweden , southern Finland and Estonia , in Switzerland (cantons of St. Gallen , Graubünden and Glarus ), in northern Italy and in the Loire Valley. It is missing in Germany.
  • Melica ciliata subsp. glauca (FW Schultz) Richter : In the fruit state, the stalk does not or barely hang over. The panicle is unbranched. The lower glume is about as long as the lower lemma, which like both glumes are only faintly or not at all purple in the nerve space. This subspecies ranges in Central Europe from Central France to Thuringia ; in the Mediterranean area it is limited to the mountains up to an altitude of 1700 m. It is the common clan in Germany and Switzerland, in Austria it occurs in Vorarlberg , Tyrol and Salzburg .
  • Melica ciliata subsp. magnolii (Gren. & Godr.) Richter : The stalk is stiff and upright. The panicle is up to 25 cm long, with up to 100 spikelets and mostly branched. The lower glume is about as long as the lower lemma, which like both glumes are only pale purple in the nerve space. This subspecies is common in the western Mediterranean and in the Aegean region and extends on the Atlantic coast to the Loire estuary.
  • Melica ciliata subsp. taurica (K.Koch) Tzvelev : The spikelets are up to 6 mm long, significantly shorter than those of the other subspecies. The stalk hangs a little when it is fruiting. The lower glume is significantly shorter than the lower lemma which, like both glumes, is violet or completely yellow in the nerve space. This subspecies occurs on the southern Balkan Peninsula, in the Black Sea region, in Turkey , in the Caucasus to Iran in low elevations.

No longer considered a subspecies:

use

The eyelash pearl grass can be used as an ornamental grass in heather gardens .

literature

  • Jürke Grau , Bruno P. Kremer, Bodo M. Möseler, Gerhard Rambold, Dagmar Triebel: Grasses. Sweet grasses, sour grasses, rushes and grass-like families in Europe (=  Steinbach's natural guide ). New, edit. Special edition edition. Mosaik, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-576-10702-9 .
  • Erich Oberdorfer : Plant-sociological excursion flora . With the collaboration of Theo Müller. 7th, revised and expanded edition. Eugen Ulmer, Stuttgart (Hohenheim) 1994, ISBN 3-8252-1828-7 .
  • Henning Haeupler, Thomas Muer: picture atlas of the fern and flowering plants of Germany . Ed .: Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (=  The fern and flowering plants of Germany . Volume 2 ). Eugen Ulmer, Stuttgart (Hohenheim) 2000, ISBN 3-8001-3364-4 .
  • Charles Edward Hubbard: Grasses. Description, distribution, use (=  UTB . Volume 233 ). 2nd, revised and expanded edition. Eugen Ulmer, Stuttgart (Hohenheim) 1985, ISBN 3-8001-2537-4 (English: Grasses . Translated by Peter Boeker).
  • Siegfried Schlosser, Lutz Reichhoff, Peter Hanelt: Wild Plants of Central Europe. Use and protection. Deutscher Landwirtschaftsverlag, Berlin 1991, ISBN 3-331-00301-8 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f 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
  2. ↑ Ruprecht Düll , Herfried Kutzelnigg : Pocket dictionary of plants in Germany. A botanical-ecological excursion companion to the most important species . 6th, completely revised edition. Quelle & Meyer, Wiebelsheim 2005, ISBN 3-494-01397-7 , p. 305 .
  3. ↑ Rafaël Govaerts (ed.): Melica ciliata. In: World Checklist of Selected Plant Families (WCSP) - The Board of Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew . Retrieved November 6, 2016.
  4. ↑ Heinz Ellenberg : Vegetation of Central Europe with the Alps in an ecological, dynamic and historical perspective (=  UTB for science. Large series . Volume 8104 ). 5th, heavily changed and improved edition. Eugen Ulmer, Stuttgart (Hohenheim) 1996, ISBN 3-8252-8104-3 , pp. 1047 .
  5. ↑ Carl von Linné: Species Plantarum. Volume 1, Lars Salvius, Stockholm 1753, p. 66, digitizedhttp: //vorlage_digitalisat.test/1%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.biodiversitylibrary.org%2Fopenurl%3Fpid%3Dtitle%3A669%26volume%3D1%26issue%3D%26spage%3D66%26date%3D1753~GB%3D~ IA% 3D ~ MDZ% 3D% 0A ~ SZ% 3D ~ double-sided% 3D ~ LT% 3D ~ PUR% 3D

Web links

Commons : Melica ciliata  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

Pictures: [1] [2] [3]