Elymus hoffmannii

Plants slightly to moderately rhizomatous. Culms 54-135 cm, glabrous. Leaves evenly distributed; sheaths glabrous; auricles absent or to 1 mm; ligules 0.6-1 mm, truncate, erose; blades 5-13 mm wide, flat to involute, abaxial surfaces smooth, glabrous, adaxial surfaces glabrous, veins closely spaced, all more or less equally prominent, smooth or scabrous. Spikes 10-50 cm long, 0.8-1.8 cm wide, with 1 spikelet per node, glabrous below the spikelets; internodes 5-8 mm long, about 0.2 mm thick, about 0.3 mm wide, both surfaces hairy, hairs 0.2-0.4 mm. Spikelets 15-27 mm, appressed to ascending, with 5-7 florets; rachillas scabridulous; disarticulation above the glumes, beneath the florets. Glumes equal, 5-11 mm long, 1.3-1.8 mm wide, stiff, lanceolate to linear-lanceolate, strongly rounded to keeled distally, keels inconspicuous and smooth on the proximal 1/3-1/2, conspicuous and with a few teeth distally, lateral veins inconspicuous, hyaline margins 0.1-0.2 mm wide, apices acuminate to awned, awns to 8 mm; lemmas 7-12 mm, glabrous, smooth, apices unawned or awned, awns to 12 mm, straight; paleas ciliate on the keels, apices about 0.6 mm wide; anthers 4-7 mm. 2n = 42. Genome StStH.

Elymus hoffmannii was described from a breeding line of plants developed from seeds collected in Erzurum Province, Turkey by J.A. Hoffmann and R.J. Metzger (Jensen & Asay 1996). There is no information available about its native distribution. As indicated in the key, E. hoffmannii differs from E. repens -primarily in its evenly prominent, closely spaced leaf veins and, usually, in having longer awns.

The description of Elymus hoffmannii was explicitly written to encompass the cultivar -NewHy-. Nevertheless, the cultivar should be identified as -Pseudelymus -NewHy-, because it is derived from an artificial cross between E. repens and Pseudoroegneria spicata . Because of its morphological similarity to plants obtained from the Turkish seed, Jensen and Asay suggested that E. hoffmannii had a similar parentage. -NewHy- was released as a cultivar in the 1980s. Its distribution within the Flora region is not known.