What’s Coming Up In The Garden, 46: eastern bottlebrush

This is a native grass that I put in to give some texture to the shady bed. The front portion of this shade bed is on a slope and while we have trenches and culvert pipes in this area to carry the water where it can easily disperse, during big/fast rain events this area gets hit. All of the shade garden plants can handle water but the grasses are especially good and their roots will drink up some excess and also anchor the soil.

I’m excited to see that the bottlebrush is coming up all over Poplar Folly. When the fencing was put in back there we also had the underbrush cleared and we kept it quite controlled last spring/summer. This spring I’m letting it grow to see what is coming up. The surprise is that many native plants are growing, as well as a few we do not want and will try to clear, including poison ivy and Japanese stilt grass.

I have something to share about poison ivy. In NC and this larger region you can find huge poison ivy vines that have grown to the very tops of our large trees. From the ground you mostly see the characteristic “hairy” vine, but up top the poison ivy blooms.

There’s research speculating that poison ivy blooms are a major source of early spring nectar for honey (and native) bees!

This really put a spin on my thinking about removing it, but given that I have had two bad reactions for two years running, even when being very careful, I don’t think I can let it grow. The other issue is that our dogs have daily farm romps and if we allow the vine to go, they will inevitably brush past it and bring it in on their fur.

So, one task coming up is gloving up and pulling this out by the roots, putting it in a big garbage bag, and taking it to the dump. Not my favorite thing to do, because even when I try to be careful I seem to get it on my skin somehow. The Zanfel that works so well after any exposure is not available online right now (or wasn’t when I last checked) so I’m hoping as soon as I get some I can get this done. Usually if you pull it all up at the start of the season you don’t see it for the rest of the year.

But back to bottlebrush:

The reason it’s called bottlebrush isn’t yet apparent on these early growth plantings, but it’s a wonderful grass that is very distinctive.

More info:

Common Name
Eastern Bottlebrush Grass

Scientific Name
Elymus hystrix L. var. hystrix

 

Plant Family
Poaceae (Grasses)

Garden Location
Upland & Woodland

 

Prime Season
June to August

Grass structure and definitions - PDF from Oregon State University

Ligule Types, Shapes & Margins (pdf)

Eastern Bottlebrush Grass is identified by the characteristic seed head. The stem, up to 5 feet long, is normally very upright and can persist into the fall. This is a warm season grass, flowering in Summer.

Leaves: The leaf blades are blue-gray, 1/2 inch wide (8-15 mm), are evenly distributed and are held horizontally from the stalk but the lower leaves can flop. The area of the leaf auricle and ligule is usually brown to brownish-black. Ligules are short - 1 to 2 mm. Auricles are 0.5 to 3 mm.  Sheaths are usually smooth and often purplish.

The inflorescence is raceme-like, 2 to 4 inches wide and 6 to 8 inches long, with a central rachis slightly angled at the nodes. The rachis has two spikelets attached to each node. These will spread widely apart at maturity. 

Spikelets: Spikelets are are 10 to 18 mm long long and held almost horizontally when mature, usually 2 per node, rarely 3. These diverge strongly when mature, each containing 2 to 4 florets but only the lowest are functional. There are 3 anthers. Glumes are very narrow and awn-like or lacking entirely. The lemmas are straight, 8 to 11 mm long, with or without hair depending on the variety, and gradually tapering to a rough, straight, rarely curving, awn that is 10 to 40 mm long.

Seed: The seeds have a bristle tip (awns), thus making the raceme, with the spikelets spreading horizontally, resemble a bottle brush.

Varieties: There are two defined varieties. The variety in the Garden, E. hystrix var. hystrix has hairless lemmas (there is a chafe-like scale or husk, on the lowest bracts of a grass spikelet called a "glume" and the lemma is a small chaffy bract inside and above the glume). The other variety, var. bigelovianus, has hairy lemmas. E. hystrix hybridizes with many eastern species of Elymus and hybrids may be found.

Habitat: Bottlebrush is very shade tolerant grass and also drought tolerant. It will grow in dry to moist soils of good quality. While full sun is acceptable, the plant does well in the light shade of a wooded understory. The plant will self-seed and in the fall the foliage can take on a chartreuse color. As the seed readily scatters and self seeds, care should be taken where it is planted in a home landscape. 

Names: An older scientific name for this plant is Hystrix patula. The genus Elymus is taken from the Greek elyo, meaning 'rolled-up', being a name for a type of grain where the lemma and palea are tightly rolled around the seed. The species, hystrix (and the older genus name for the plant) means bristly. The author name for the plant classification - 'L.' refers to Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778), Swedish botanist and the developer of the binomial nomenclature of modern taxonomy.

Comparisons: Other species of Elymus found in the Garden are Quackgrass, Elymus repens and Wild Rye & Canada Wild Rye,  Elymus sp. & E. Canadensis.

See bottom of page for notes on the Garden's planting history, distribution in Minnesota and North America, lore and other references.

Above: The erect stem and flower head of Eastern Bottlebrush. While Bottlebrush is quite shade tolerant it does  better in full sun.

Below: The small ligule and auricle of the leaf. This area can be brown to brownish-black in color. The leaf sheath can have a purplish color.

 

Below: Stem nodes are swollen, whitish, and can have a purplish coloration beneath. In the 2nd photo the inflorescence is emerging from the stem.

 

Below: 1st photo - There are usually 2 spiklets at each node. These begin to diverge and spread horizontally as soon as the inflorescence is free of the sheath. 2nd photo - Upper leaves are held ascending to horizontally from the stem.

 

Below: The seed panicle at flowering time - divergence of the two spikelets at each node of the rachis already developed.

Below: Details of the seed head of Eastern Bottlebrush. Note the divergence of the two spikelets at each node of the rachis. Several have already fallen away in this photo. Photo ©Phoebe Waugh

Notes:

Notes: Eastern Bottlebrush is indigenous to the Garden. Eloise Butler catalogued it on Sept. 6, 1907 using the older name of Hystrix patula. Additional plantings were made by Gardener Cary George in 1987 and by Susan Wilkins in 2009.

Eastern Bottlebrush is found in the states and lower Canadian Provinces east of the Great Plains and as far south as Oklahoma. In Minnesota E. hystrix is found in most of the state, but the variety hystrix is only found in 11 counties, mostly near the Dakota Border.

Eastern Bottlebrush is one of nine species of Elymus found in Minnesota. The others are mostly all native species of rhy grass. The lone exception is the non-native Quackgrass.