Plants perennial; cespitose or soboliferous, not or only shortly rhizomatous. Culms (4)9–250 cm, sometimes forming a basal corm; nodes and internodes usually glabrous. Sheaths closed almost to the top; auricles sometimes present; ligules thinly membranous, erose to lacerate, usually glabrous, those of the lower leaves shorter than those of the upper leaves; blades flat or folded, glabrous or hairy, particularly on the adaxial surfaces, sometimes scabrous. Inflorescences terminal panicles; primary branches often appressed; secondary branches appressed or divergent; pedicels either more or less straight or sharply bent below the spikelets, scabrous to strigose distally; disarticulation below the glumes in species with sharply bent pedicels, above the glumes in other species. Spikelets with 1–7 bisexual florets, terminating in a sterile structure, the rudiment, composed of 1–4 sterile florets; rudiments sometimes morphologically distinct from the bisexual florets, sometimes similar but smaller. Glumes membranous or chartaceous, distal margins wide, translucent; lower glumes 1–9-veined; upper glumes 1–11-veined; calluses glabrous; lemmas membranous basally, sometimes becoming coriaceous at maturity, glabrous or with hairs, (4)5–15-veined, usually unawned, sometimes awned, awns to 12 mm, straight; paleas from 1/2 as long as to almost equaling the lemmas, keels usually ciliate; lodicules fused into a single, collarlike structure extending 1/2–2/3 around the base of the ovaries; anthers(2)3. Caryopses usually 2–3 mm, smooth, glabrous, longitudinally furrowed, falling from the floret when mature. x = 9. From the Latin mel, ‘honey’, a classical name for an unknown, but presumably sweet, plant.

Melica includes approximately 80 species, which grow in all temperate regions of the world except Australia, usually in shady woodlands on dry stony slopes (Mejia-Saulés and Bisby 2003). The species are relatively nutritious, but are rarely sufficiently abundant to be important as forage.

Nineteen species of Melica grow in the Flora region. Two European species are grown as ornamentals in North America. Many of the seventeen native species merit such use.
Several proposals have been made for dividing Melica into smaller units. American taxonomists have tended to favor Thurber’s (1880) recognition of two subgenera: Melica and Bromelica. In subg. Melica, the pedicels are straight and disarticulation is above the glumes; in subg. Bromelica, the pedicels are sharply bent and the spikelets disarticulate below the glumes. Hempel (1970) recognized three subgenera in Melica, but his groups do not correspond well to the pattern of morphological variation seen in North America. More recently, Mejia-Saulés and Bisby (2003) examined the variation in lemma silica bodies and hooked papillae within Melica. Their results are not consistent with either Thurber’s or Hempel’s treatment, but provide some support for Papp’s (1928) recognition of two groups, based on the presence or absence of hairs on the lemmas and the compression of the spikelets.

In the following key and descriptions, unless otherwise stated, comments on the panicle branches apply to the longest branches within the panicle; glume widths are measured from side to side, at the widest portion; lemma descriptions are for the lowest floret in the spikelets; and rachilla internode comments apply to the lowest internode in the spikelets.

SELECTED REFERENCES Boyle, W.S. 1945. A cytotaxonomic study of the North American species of Melica. Madroño 8:1–26; Farwell, O.A. 1919. Bromelica(Thurber): A new genus of grasses. Rhodora 21:76–78; Hempel, W. 1970. Taxonomische und chorologische Untersuchungen an Arten von Melica L. subgen. Melica. Feddes Repert. 81:131–145; Hitchcock, A.S. 1951. Manual of the Grasses of the United States, ed. 2, rev. A. Chase. U.S.D.A. Miscellaneous Publication No. 200. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., U.S.A. 1051 pp.; Mejia-Saulés, T. and F.A. Bisby. 2003. Silica bodies and hooked papillae in lemmas of Melica species (Gramineae: Poöideae). Bot. J. Linn. Soc. 143:447–463; Papp, C. 1928. Monographie der Südamerikanischen Arten der Gattung Melica L. Repert. Spec. Nov. Regni Veg. 25:97–160; Thurber, G. 1880. Melica Linn. Pp. 302–305 in S. Watson. Geological Survey of California: Botany, vol. 2. Little, Brown, Boston, Masssachusetts, U.S.A. 559 pp.