Mary E. Barkworth, Julian J.N. Campbell and Bjorn Salomon
Plants glaucous, often strongly so, becoming reddish brown at maturity. Culms usually 30–80 cm; nodes usually 4–6, often exposed; ligules and auriclesoften pronounced. Blades 2–9 mm wide, often becoming involute and ascending, glabrous or slightly scabrous. Spikes 3.5–11 cm, exserted; spikeletsusually glabrous to scabrous, strongly glaucous; glumes about 0.7–1.5 mm wide, usually somewhat indurate and bowed out in the basal 1–2 mm. Anthesis late June to late July.
Elymusvirginicus var.halophilus grows in the moist to damp soil of dunes and brackish marsh edges along the northern Atlantic coast, from Nova Scotia to North Carolina. It could be considered a relatively small, disjunct form of the largely midwestern E.virginicus var. jejunus , but its glumes are more like those of var. virginicus . Transitions to E.glabriflorus may be found in southern regions. Rare northern plants with hirsute spikelets (sometimes called E.virginicus forma lasiolepis Fernald ) differ from var. intermedius by their grayish green, involute blades.