I found a dried, past-season Elymus today that was much smaller than our typical species. Most Elymus here have spikes 1-2 inches wide, with spikelets somewhat spreading. These plants had much more narrow spikes, and spikelets were tightly appressed.

Plants were scattered in the riprap of a dam and appeared to be wild. The basal clumps were about a foot wide. Each clump had more than 30 culms, ranging from 30 to 40 inches tall. The spikes were extremely dense, about 4 inches long by just 0.4 inch wide. There were 3-4 flowers per node, and the internodes averaged 4 mm long. The lemmas had hairs and the paleae were hairy with rounded tips. Glumes were about equal in length and seemed to have very short awns. Lemma awns were more substantial.

Since the plants were dried and coming apart, they were difficult to key. The best match seemed to be Elymus virginicus var. halophilus, but that variant isn't known in this area. Please provide suggestions for other narrow-spiked species.

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