Calamagrostis breviligulata (Fernald) Saarela

beach grass

Maritime dunes and also planted and naturalizing along the shores of Lake Ontario.

Graminoid

Perennial

Vascular

8

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See Saarela et al. (2017) for rational for placing this taxon in the genus Calamagrostis. Native North American Ammophila occurs on coastal sand dunes of eastern North America as well as inland on sand dunes of the Great Lakes, Lake Champlain, the St. Lawrence River, and Lac Saint-Jean, Quebec (Fernald 1950). Until the later half of the 20th century all native Ammophila was classified as A. breviligulata. In 1966 Ammophila champlainensis was described as distinct from A. breviligulata from plants along the edge of Lake Champlain (Seymour 1966). Since that time small as well as extensive studies have been conducted to determine the appropriate taxonomic status of these two taxa and their distribution (Stern 1983, Tucker 1992, Cope 1994, Walker 1998, Walker et al. 1998, Delisle-Oldham et al. 2008). It appears that all of the morphological characters that have been used to distinguish the two taxa overlap. Plants of A. champlainensis are generally smaller than A. breviligulata but the differences are not discrete (Delisle-Oldham et al. 2008). Plants of Ammophila from Lake Champlain and the Great Lakes flower considerably earlier than plants from the Atlantic Coast (Stern 1983) although Cope (1994) found some individuals from Lake Ontario populations that fit A. champlainensis morphologically but flowered late like A. breviligulata. Common garden experiments have shown that morphological and phenological differences are maintained under similar growing conditions (Stern 1983). On a molecular level native eastern North American Ammophila consists of four separate lineages: northern Atlantic Coast, southern Atlantic Coast, Lake Champlain / St. Lawrence River, and Great Lakes. In addition, the interior populations as a whole, representing the Lake Champlain / St. Lawrence River and Great Lakes populations, represent a distinct lineage (Walker 1998, Walker et al. 1998). Currently we recognize only a broadly circumscribed A. breviligulata.

Native UPL, FACU- (NWPL) FACU (NWPL EMP) UPL (NWPL NCNE) S5 (State Rank) G5 (Global Rank)

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