Leymus arenarius(L.) Hochst.

lyme-grasssand ryegrass

WFO wfo-0000878157 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Leymus arenarius, photographed by Christian Berg
fig. a Christian Berg, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-05-23 / obs. 200792828
Leymus arenarius, photographed by Susan Marley
fig. b Susan Marley, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 191811121
Leymus arenarius, photographed by Stephen James McWilliam
fig. c Stephen James McWilliam, CC0 1.0 / obs. 167986168
Leymus arenarius, photographed by Susan Marley
fig. d Susan Marley, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 159659546
Leymus arenarius, photographed by Alan Weakley
fig. e Alan Weakley, CC0 1.0 / obs. 148414232
Leymus arenarius, photographed by Michel Langeveld
fig. f Michel Langeveld, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 148129696
Leymus arenarius, photographed by Ryan Hodnett
fig. g Ryan Hodnett, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 175057416
Leymus arenarius, photographed by Jens-Christian Svenning
fig. h Jens-Christian Svenning, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 143636844

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
02688473
Filed as
Leymus arenarius (L.) Hochst.
Det. by
D. E. Atha 2016-01-01
Collected
D. E. Atha 2016-06-03
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 20 botanical countries

Regions where Leymus arenarius is native: Belarus, Belgium, Central European Russia, Denmark, Finland, Føroyar, France, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Netherlands, North European Russia, Northwest European Russia, Norway, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Ukraine BelarusBelgiumCentral European RussiaDenmarkFinlandFranceGermanyGreeceIcelandIrelandNetherlandsNorth European RussiaNorthwest European RussiaNorwayPolandSpainSwedenUkraine Føroyar
Native distribution of Leymus arenarius, 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
Belarus BLR EUROPE
Belgium BGM
Central European Russia RUC
Denmark DEN
Finland FIN
Føroyar FOR
France FRA
Germany GER
Great Britain GRB
Greece GRC
Iceland ICE
Ireland IRE
Netherlands NET
North European Russia RUN
Northwest European Russia RUW
Norway NOR
Poland POL
Spain SPA
Sweden SWE
Ukraine UKR

Not drawn on the map: Great Britain. We hold no public-domain boundary for this region, so it is listed rather than guessed at.

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 1,934 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -11.0 °C -2.0 °C 3.9 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 12.4 °C 19.4 °C 22.3 °C
Annual rainfall 596 mm 768 mm 1,581 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 95 mm 126 mm 261 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 1,934 research-grade observations of Leymus arenarius 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 17 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 arenarius L.
  • Elymus arenarius f. cristatus Holmb.
  • Elymus arenarius f. ramosus Neuman
  • Elymus arenarius var. geniculatus (Curtis ex Sm.) Hartm.
  • Elymus arenarius var. leopolensis Zapał.
  • Elymus arenarius var. macrostachyus Andersson
  • Elymus arenarius var. megastachys Andersson
  • Elymus arenarius var. microstachys Andersson
  • Elymus arenarius var. minor Lange
  • Elymus arenarius var. multiflorus Hallier
  • Elymus arenarius var. triticoides Blytt
  • Elymus geniculatus Curtis ex Sm.
  • Elymus geniculatus Curtis
  • Frumentum arenarium (L.) E.H.L.Krause
  • Hordeum arenarium (L.) Asch.
  • Hordeum villosum Moench
  • Triticum arenarium (L.) F.Herm.

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.