Tall Wheat-grass -introduced (*Lophopyrum ponticum)

Native to the southern Europe.

Family. Poaceae (Grass family).

Other names: Lophopyrum elongatum, Thinopyrum elongatum.

Occurrence: Uncommon.

Identification:

• it is a tufted grass
• the flowers cluster is a spike (i.e. flowers are stalkless) and resembles a tall rye grass
• there are 2 glumes, about as long as the lemmas
• it is without awns
• the leaves are flat or rolled
• the ligule is shortly fringed and 0.3-1mm long.

It is salt-tolerant and often planted in saline places.

Tall Wheat-grass resembles a tall rye grass, in that the flowers are stalkless along the main stem. It differs in its height (to over a metre) and the spikelets have two glumes (compared with 1 for most spikelets of Rye Grass), and the glumes have a blunt tip (pointed for rye grasses.)

It is an environmental weed.

Lophos: a tuft; pyros: wheat, it is a tufted wheat-grass; ponticum: from the shores of the Black Sea.

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