Lolium multiflorumLam.

Italian Rye Grassitalian rye-grass

WFO wfo-0000878425 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Lolium multiflorum, photographed by Daniel Cahen
fig. a Daniel Cahen, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-06-12 / obs. 205541227

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
650599
Filed as
Lolium multiflorum Lam.
Det. by
M. M. Marchi 1996-01-01
Collected
R. M. Klein 1962-12-09
Origin
BR
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 46 botanical countries

Regions where Lolium multiflorum is native: Algeria, Azores, Canary Is., Chad, Egypt, Libya, Madeira, Mauritania, Morocco, Tunisia, Western Sahara, Afghanistan, Cyprus, East Aegean Is., Iran, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Kirgizstan, Lebanon-Syria, North Caucasus, Palestine, Sinai, Tadzhikistan, Transcaucasus, Türkiye, Uzbekistan, Yemen, East Himalaya, Pakistan, West Himalaya, Albania, Baleares, Bulgaria, Corse, France, Greece, Italy, Kriti, NW. Balkan Pen., Portugal, Romania, Sardegna, Sicilia, Spain, Türkiye-in-Europe, El Salvador AlgeriaChadEgyptLibyaMauritaniaMoroccoTunisiaWestern SaharaAfghanistanCyprusEast Aegean Is.IranIraqKazakhstanKirgizstanLebanon-SyriaNorth CaucasusPalestineSinaiTadzhikistanTranscaucasusTürkiyeUzbekistanYemenEast HimalayaPakistanWest HimalayaAlbaniaBulgariaCorseFranceGreeceItalyKritiNW. Balkan Pen.PortugalRomaniaSiciliaSpainTürkiye-in-EuropeEl Salvador AzoresCanary Is.MadeiraBalearesSardegna
Native distribution of Lolium multiflorum, 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
Afghanistan AFG ASIA-TEMPERATE
Cyprus CYP
East Aegean Is. EAI
Iran IRN
Iraq IRQ
Kazakhstan KAZ
Kirgizstan KGZ
Lebanon-Syria LBS
North Caucasus NCS
Palestine PAL
Sinai SIN
Tadzhikistan TZK
Transcaucasus TCS
Türkiye TUR
Uzbekistan UZB
Yemen YEM
Albania ALB EUROPE
Baleares BAL
Bulgaria BUL
Corse COR
France FRA
Greece GRC
Italy ITA
Kriti KRI
NW. Balkan Pen. YUG
Portugal POR
Romania ROM
Sardegna SAR
Sicilia SIC
Spain SPA
Türkiye-in-Europe TUE
Algeria ALG AFRICA
Azores AZO
Canary Is. CNY
Chad CHA
Egypt EGY
Libya LBY
Madeira MDR
Mauritania MTN
Morocco MOR
Tunisia TUN
Western Sahara WSA
East Himalaya EHM ASIA-TROPICAL
Pakistan PAK
West Himalaya WHM
El Salvador ELS SOUTHERN AMERICA

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.

Flowering 123 in flower of 187 examined

Proportion of examined Lolium multiflorum in flower, by month
Month In flower Examined Share 95% interval
Jan 4 5 80% 38% to 96%
Feb 4 6 67% 30% to 90%
Mar 7 14 50% 27% to 73%
Apr 24 39 62% 46% to 75%
May 28 40 70% 55% to 82%
Jun 21 29 72% 54% to 85%
Jul 8 12 67% 39% to 86%
Aug 9 11 82% 52% to 95%
Sep 3 5 60% 23% to 88%
Oct 2 5 40% 12% to 77%
Nov 12 17 71% 47% to 87%
Dec 1 4 too few examined

Peak flowering in Aug. Each bar is the share of Lolium multiflorum observations in which someone actually recorded the reproductive state and found the plant in flower, not the raw number of flowering records. That distinction matters: people observe plants far more in spring than in winter, so a bare count of flowering records partly measures when people go outside. Dividing by the number examined removes that. 123 of 187 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. One month has fewer than 5 examined observations, so no proportion is drawn for it. This is still a global aggregate and not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres. Where a species has fewer than 30 flowering records we do not draw this chart at all. Computed from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Where it actually grows measured, from 1,970 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -11.5 °C 3.6 °C 10.1 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 18.9 °C 25.5 °C 34.5 °C
Annual rainfall 323 mm 826 mm 1,802 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 4 mm 118 mm 271 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 1,970 research-grade observations of Lolium multiflorum 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. Climate from CHELSA V2.1 (Karger et al. 2017); occurrences from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Also published as 47 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.

  • Lolium ambiguum Desp.
  • Lolium aristatum (Willd.) Lag.
  • Lolium compositum Thuill.
  • Lolium elongatum Rouville
  • Lolium gaudinii Parl.
  • Lolium italicum A.Braun
  • Lolium italicum var. aristatum Alef.
  • Lolium italicum var. brachypodiatum Stebler & Schroet.
  • Lolium italicum var. italicum
  • Lolium italicum var. muticum Döll
  • Lolium italicum var. ramosum Parn.
  • Lolium lesdaini Sennen
  • Lolium multiflorum f. microstachyum R.Uechtr.
  • Lolium multiflorum f. submuticum (Mutel) Anghel & Beldie
  • Lolium multiflorum subsp. gaudinii (Asch. & Graebn.) Schinz & R.Keller
  • Lolium multiflorum subsp. italicum (Husn.) Schinz & R.Keller
  • Lolium multiflorum subsp. ramosum (Guss.) Arcang.
  • Lolium multiflorum var. aristatum Maire & Weiller
  • Lolium multiflorum var. brachypodiatum (Stebler & Schroet.) Asch. & Graebn.
  • Lolium multiflorum var. complanatum Mutel
  • Lolium multiflorum var. compositum (Thuill.) Steud.
  • Lolium multiflorum var. excelsum Griseb.
  • Lolium multiflorum var. gaudinii Asch. & Graebn.
  • Lolium multiflorum var. italicum (Husn.) Beck

and 23 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.
  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.