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Alaska Onion Grass
Melica subulata
  
1 Nurseries Carry This Plant

About Alaska Onion Grass (Melica subulata) 1 Nurseries Carry This Plant Melica subulata is a species of grass known by the common name Alaska oniongrass. It is native to western North America from Alaska to California to Colorado, where it grows in moist habitat, often in forests. It is a main understory member of the Douglas-fir/Alaska oniongrass plant community, a rare plant association that occurs on the southern edge of Vancouver Island on the Strait of Georgia. This plant community once had a wider range, occurring also along the Puget Sound and in the Willamette Valley. This is a rhizomatous perennial grass with clustered onionlike corms at the base of each stem. It grows to a maximum height near 1.3 meters. The flower cluster is a narrow or spreading panicle of cylindrical, pointed spikelets which may be nearly 3 centimeters long.
Plant Description
Plant Type
Plant Type
Grasses

Size
Size
3.3 - 4.3 ft tall

Form
Form
Upright

Growth Rate
Growth Rate
Moderate

Flower Color
Flower Color
Yellow

Flowering Season
Flowering Season
Spring

Wildlife Supported
 


 
Butterflies & moths hosted ( 1 likely * ) SHOW ALL
*
Ochlodes agricola Image
Rural Skipper Ochlodes agricolaOchlodes agricola

Landscaping Information
Sun
Sun
Full Sun, Part Shade

Nurseries
Nurseries
Carried by 1

Soil Description
Soil Description
Adaptable, tolerant of sand, loam and clay

Natural Setting
Site Type
Site Type
Moist places

Climate
Climate
Annual Precipitation: 15.1" - 151.1", Summer Precipitation: 0.20" - 5.63", Coldest Month: 27.1" - 49.8", Hottest Month: 46.8" - 73.3", Humidity: 0.01" - 23.21", Elevation: 9" - 9105"

Alternative Names
Common Names: Alaska Oniongrass


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Sources include: Wikipedia. All text shown in the "About" section of these pages is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. Plant observation data provided by the participants of the California Consortia of Herbaria, Sunset information provided by Jepson Flora Project. Propogation from seed information provided by the Santa Barbara Botanical Garden from "Seed Propagation of Native California Plants" by Dara E. Emery. Sources of plant photos include CalPhotos, Wikimedia Commons, and independent plant photographers who have agreed to share their images with Calscape. Other general sources of information include Calflora, CNPS Manual of Vegetation Online, Jepson Flora Project, Las Pilitas, Theodore Payne, Tree of Life, The Xerces Society, and information provided by CNPS volunteer editors, with special thanks to Don Rideout. Climate data used in creation of plant range maps is from PRISM Climate Group, Oregon State University, using 30 year (1981-2010) annual "normals" at an 800 meter spatial resolution.

Links:   Jepson eFlora Taxon Page  CalPhotos  Wikipedia  Calflora


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