Elymus canadensisL.

Canada wild rye

WFO wfo-0000866073 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h

Elymus canadensis, photographed by Zakqary Roy
fig. a Zakqary Roy, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-05-20 / obs. 199165065
Elymus canadensis, photographed by Ryan Sorrells
fig. b Ryan Sorrells, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 182171021
Elymus canadensis, photographed by Becca
fig. c Becca, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 175443796
Elymus canadensis, photographed by Yann Kemper
fig. d Yann Kemper, CC0 1.0 / obs. 164093918
Elymus canadensis, photographed by Mary Krieger
fig. e Mary Krieger, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 163214264
Elymus canadensis, photographed by Thomas Koffel
fig. f Thomas Koffel, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 167054752
Elymus canadensis, photographed by aarongunnar
fig. g aarongunnar, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 165967596
Elymus canadensis, photographed by Mary Krieger
fig. h Mary Krieger, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 163368413

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.

Flowering n = 58 observations

Peak flowering in Jul, from 58 community-annotated observations worldwide. This is a global aggregate, not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres, and citizen-science records cluster near cities, at weekends, and in spring. Where a species has fewer than 30 annotated records we do not draw this chart at all.

Also published as 40 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.

  • Clinelymus canadensis (L.) Nevski
  • Elymus brachystachys Scribn. & C.R.Ball
  • Elymus canadensis f. calvescens (Fernald) Bowden
  • Elymus canadensis f. canadensis
  • Elymus canadensis f. crescendus Ramaley
  • Elymus canadensis f. glaucifolius (Muhl. ex Willd.) Fernald
  • Elymus canadensis f. wiegandii (Fernald) Scoggan
  • Elymus canadensis subsp. canadensis
  • Elymus canadensis subsp. wiegandii (Fernald) Á.Löve
  • Elymus canadensis var. albanensis Lepage
  • Elymus canadensis var. brachystachys (Scribn. & C.R.Ball) Farw.
  • Elymus canadensis var. canadensis
  • Elymus canadensis var. glaucifolius (Muhl. ex Willd.) Trevir.
  • Elymus canadensis var. hirsutus (Farw.) Dorn
  • Elymus canadensis var. pendulus Eaton & Wright
  • Elymus canadensis var. philadelphicus (L.) Farw.
  • Elymus canadensis var. robustus (Scribn. & J.G.Sm.) Mack. & Bush
  • Elymus canadensis var. villosus Bates
  • Elymus canadensis var. wiegandii (Fernald) Bowden
  • Elymus crescendus (Ramaley) C.F.Wheeler
  • Elymus glaucifolius Muhl. ex Willd.
  • Elymus glaucifolius var. crescendus (Ramaley) Bush
  • Elymus glaucifolius var. robustus (Scribn. & J.G.Sm.) Bush
  • Elymus philadelphicus L.

and 16 more.

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.

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