Elymus albicans(Scribn. & J.G.Sm.) Á.Löve

Montana wheatgrass

WFO wfo-0000865950 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 3 observations

This species has been photographed under an open licence only 3 times, so some figures below are different views of the same plant, taken on the same day, rather than different individuals. They are usually different parts of it: the leaf, the flower, the bark.

Elymus albicans, photographed by Matt Lavin
fig. a Matt Lavin, CC BY 4.0 / 2016-07-28 / obs. 153179126
Elymus albicans, photographed by Matt Lavin
fig. b Matt Lavin, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 153180441
Elymus albicans, photographed by Matt Lavin
fig. c Matt Lavin, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 152505145
Elymus albicans, photographed by Matt Lavin
fig. d Matt Lavin, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 153179754
Elymus albicans, photographed by Matt Lavin
fig. e Matt Lavin, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 152505116
Elymus albicans, photographed by Matt Lavin
fig. f Matt Lavin, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 153179758
Elymus albicans, photographed by Matt Lavin
fig. g Matt Lavin, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 153180431
Elymus albicans, photographed by Matt Lavin
fig. h Matt Lavin, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 153179764

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Native range 13 botanical countries

Regions where Elymus albicans is native: Alberta, British Columbia, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ontario, Saskatchewan, South Dakota, Utah, Washington, Wyoming AlbertaBritish ColumbiaColoradoIdahoMontanaNebraskaNorth DakotaOntarioSaskatchewanSouth DakotaUtahWashingtonWyoming
Native distribution of Elymus albicans, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Alberta ABT NORTHERN AMERICA
British Columbia BRC
Colorado COL
Idaho IDA
Montana MNT
Nebraska NEB
North Dakota NDA
Ontario ONT
Saskatchewan SAS
South Dakota SDA
Utah UTA
Washington WAS
Wyoming WYO

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Where it actually grows measured, from 36 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -19.0 °C -14.2 °C -10.3 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 22.7 °C 24.6 °C 26.9 °C
Annual rainfall 331 mm 390 mm 487 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 30 mm 39 mm 54 mm

It is found where winters are severely cold. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 36 research-grade observations of Elymus albicans that carry a coordinate, and this is the range those places actually span. The 5th and 95th percentiles are used rather than the minimum and maximum, because a single cultivated specimen in a heated conservatory should not widen a tropical plant's range to the Arctic.

This is not a hardiness zone. A USDA zone is the average annual extreme minimum temperature. The figure above is the mean daily minimum of the coldest month, which is a different quantity and is typically far warmer. Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one.

Also published as 16 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Agropyron albicans Scribn. & J.G.Sm.
  • Agropyron albicans var. albicans
  • Agropyron albicans var. griffithsii (Scribn. & J.G.Sm.) Beetle
  • Agropyron bowdenii B.Boivin
  • Agropyron griffithsii Scribn. & J.G.Sm.
  • Elymus albicans var. albicans
  • Elymus albicans var. griffithsii (Scribn. & J.G.Sm.) Dorn
  • Elymus bowdenii (B.Boivin) M.H.J.van der Meer
  • Elymus griffithsii (Scribn. & J.G.Sm.) Á.Löve
  • Elymus lanceolatus subsp. albicans (Scribn. & J.G.Sm.) Barkworth & D.R.Dewey
  • Elytrigia dasystachya subsp. albicans (Scribn. & J.G.Sm.) D.R.Dewey
  • Roegneria albicans (Scribn. & J.G.Sm.) Beetle
  • Roegneria albicans var. albicans
  • Roegneria albicans var. griffithsii (Scribn. & J.G.Sm. ex Piper) Beetle
  • Zeia albicans (Scribn. & J.G.Sm.) Lunell
  • Zeia griffithsii (Scribn. & J.G.Sm.) Lunell

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
  4. Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.