Elymus villosusMuhl. ex Willd.

hairy wildrye

WFO wfo-0000866842 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Elymus villosus, photographed by Violet T.
fig. a Violet T., CC BY 4.0 / 2022-06-03 / obs. 203024826
Elymus villosus, photographed by Jeff D Hansen
fig. b Jeff D Hansen, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 163198327
Elymus villosus, photographed by Ethan Rose
fig. c Ethan Rose, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 151737193
Elymus villosus, photographed by aarongunnar
fig. d aarongunnar, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 171523624
Elymus villosus, photographed by Ryan Donnelly
fig. e Ryan Donnelly, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 140051027
Elymus villosus, photographed by John Abrams
fig. f John Abrams, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 139775447
Elymus villosus, photographed by Ryan Sorrells
fig. g Ryan Sorrells, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 137092701
Elymus villosus, photographed by Thomas Koffel
fig. h Thomas Koffel, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 120058696

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.

The specimen a real sheet, in a real collection

Herbarium
The New York Botanical Garden
Accession
02456567
Filed as
Elymus villosus Muhl. ex Willd.
Det. by
J. R. Abbott 2015-01-01
Collected
D. E. Atha 2014-06-20
Origin
US
The sheet
View the digitised specimen (CC BY 4.0)

A real pressed plant, in a real collection, under the accession number above. Not an illustration of one. The holding institution does not serve this sheet’s image to third parties, so there is no photograph here. The record is real and the link goes to it. Where we hold no openly licensed sheet for a species this section is simply absent, and where a sheet never recorded who determined it, that field stays empty rather than being filled in. Roughly half of all herbarium sheets never recorded a determiner, which is ordinary.

Native range 38 botanical countries

Regions where Elymus villosus is native: Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Ontario, Pennsylvania, Québec, Rhode I., South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming AlabamaArkansasConnecticutGeorgiaIllinoisIndianaIowaKansasKentuckyMarylandMassachusettsMichiganMinnesotaMississippiMissouriNebraskaNew JerseyNew MexicoNew YorkNorth CarolinaNorth DakotaOhioOklahomaOntarioPennsylvaniaQuébecSouth CarolinaSouth DakotaTennesseeTexasVermontVirginiaWest VirginiaWisconsinWyoming DelawareDistrict of ColumbiaRhode I.
Native distribution of Elymus villosus, 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. Regions too small to draw at this scale are marked with a dot.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Alabama ALA NORTHERN AMERICA
Arkansas ARK
Connecticut CNT
Delaware DEL
District of Columbia WDC
Georgia GEO
Illinois ILL
Indiana INI
Iowa IOW
Kansas KAN
Kentucky KTY
Maryland MRY
Massachusetts MAS
Michigan MIC
Minnesota MIN
Mississippi MSI
Missouri MSO
Nebraska NEB
New Jersey NWJ
New Mexico NWM
New York NWY
North Carolina NCA
North Dakota NDA
Ohio OHI
Oklahoma OKL
Ontario ONT
Pennsylvania PEN
Québec QUE
Rhode I. RHO
South Carolina SCA
South Dakota SDA
Tennessee TEN
Texas TEX
Vermont VER
Virginia VRG
West Virginia WVA
Wisconsin WIS
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 768 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -12.2 °C -6.9 °C -0.5 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 25.6 °C 28.4 °C 31.6 °C
Annual rainfall 800 mm 1,015 mm 1,298 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 69 mm 176 mm 264 mm

It is found where winters bring hard frost. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 768 research-grade observations of Elymus villosus 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.

  • Elymus arkansanus Scribn. & C.R.Ball
  • Elymus ciliatus Muhl.
  • Elymus hirsutus Schreb. ex Roem. & Schult.
  • Elymus propinquus Fresen.
  • Elymus striatus f. glaber Hack.
  • Elymus striatus var. arkansanus (Scribn. & C.R.Ball) Hitchc.
  • Elymus striatus var. ballii Pammel
  • Elymus striatus var. propinquus (Fresen.) Hack.
  • Elymus striatus var. villosus (Muhl. ex Willd.) A.Gray
  • Elymus villosus f. arkansanus (Scribn. & C.R.Ball) Fernald
  • Elymus villosus f. villosus
  • Elymus villosus var. arkansanus (Scribn. & C.R.Ball) J.J.N.Campb.
  • Elymus villosus var. villosus
  • Elymus virginicus subsp. villosus (Muhl. ex Willd.) Á.Löve
  • Hordeum villosum (Muhl. ex Willd.) Schenck
  • Terrellia villosa (Muhl. ex Willd.) B.R.Baum

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.