Melica ciliata

Eyelash Melick ( Melica ciliata )

The Eyelash Melick ( Melica ciliata ) is a sweet grass ( Poaceae ) that grows preferentially on heat- favored places. It features dry heaths, and especially the steppes of the South East European region. A striking feature of this grass are clearly visible hanging out of the spikelets at flowering time eyelashes lemmas. Due to its attractive inflorescences this grass is often grown in gardens.

Description

The Eyelash Melick is a perennial and deciduous plant that forms dense and rich leafy clumps. The Hemikryptophyt reaches stature heights between 30 and 60 centimeters. The top downward to the inflorescences rough stalks grow upright stiff. The leaves are gray-green. The rigid leaf blades are up to 25 centimeters long and 3-4 mm wide. They are usually spread out flat, rolled often borstlich during drought. The leaf sheaths are hairless and do not wear ears. The ligule measure between 2 to 3 millimeters in length. They are dull and usually slashed.

The inflorescence is an erect and indistinct einseitswendige Ährenrispe. The voltage applied to the floral axis or something splaying panicle branches are short. The 6-7 mm long spikelets are two flowered. One of these is usually sterile and stunted to a piston-shaped rest of the whitish after flowering glumes are about the same length, rough and awnless. The fruit also whitish to time, seven to nine annoying lemmas of the barren flowers are bald. Those of the fertile flowers are, however, long ciliate shaggy, whereupon both the scientific as well as the German name refer. The eyelashes are hanging out in the heyday of the spikelets. The flowering period extends from June to July.

For all sub-species chromosome number 2n = 18 has been demonstrated.

Ecology

The Eyelash Melick is a Hemikryptophyt. Due to the long-haired lemmas the false fruits are spread as Schirmchenflieger.

Distribution and location

The Eyelash Melick is widespread throughout Europe with the exception of the north with a focus on heat areas and in North Africa. Its area ranges in the east through Turkey and the Caucasus to Kazakhstan, where it is found mainly in the steppes. In Central Europe it reaches its north-western border of the Rhine Valley. In Germany it is quite rare. It settled an open, gappy and always very sunny stone rubble and rocky corridors on dry, base-rich and mostly calcareous soils on slopes and in dry grasslands.

After Ellenberg it is a light plant, a heat indicator, sub-oceanic spreading, a weak acid to weak base pointer and a Verbandscharakterart the bleaching fescue - rock band corridors ( Festucion pallentis ).

System

The Eyelash Melick was first published in 1753 by Carl Linnaeus in Species Plantarum. It is divided into four subspecies, which in turn can be further subdivided into varieties:

• Melica ciliata L. subsp. ciliata: The blade hangs in the state fruit easily. The Ährenrispe is unbranched. The lower glume is significantly shorter than the lower lemma, which are both glumes as in the nervous space strong violet or fully yellow. This Southeastern European subspecies ranges from Moravia and Austria (Styria, Carinthia, Lower Austria, Burgenland ) to Macedonia and Bulgaria, Moldova and Western Ukraine. Relict deposits are also on the Baltic coast of southern Sweden, southern Finland and Estonia, Switzerland ( cantons of St. Gallen, Graubünden and Glarus ), in northern Italy and in the Loire Valley. You're lacking in Germany.
• Melica ciliata subsp. glauca (FW Schultz ) Judge: The straw does not hang over to the little fruit condition. The Ährenrispe is unbranched. The lower glume is about as long as the lower lemma, which only weakly or not at all are like both glumes in the nervous room purple. This subspecies ranges in Central Europe from central France to Thuringia; in the Mediterranean region it is restricted to the mountains up to an altitude of 1700 m. She's in Germany and Switzerland, the widespread clan, in Austria it is found in Vorarlberg, Tyrol and Salzburg.
• Melica ciliata subsp. magnolii ( Gren. & Godr. ) Judge: The stem is erect stiff. The Ährenrispe is up to 25 cm long, with up to 100 spikelets and usually branched. The lower glume is about as long as the lower lemma, which are both glumes as in the nervous room only weakly violet. This subspecies is distributed in the western Mediterranean and the Aegean region and extends along the Atlantic coast to the Loire estuary.
• Melica ciliata subsp. taurica ( K.Koch ) Tzvelev: The spikelets are much shorter than in the other sub- types with up to 6 mm in length. The blade hangs in the state fruit about something. The lower glume is significantly shorter than the lower lemma which are both glumes as in the nervous room full of purple or yellow. This subspecies occurs on the southern Balkan peninsula in the Black Sea region, Turkey, Caucasia to Iran in lowlands before.

Use

The Eyelash Melick can be used in heather gardens as an ornamental grass.