E-Flora BC: Electronic Atlas of the Flora of British Columbia

General:
Tufted, short-lived perennial grass from rhizomes with some vegetative shoots; stems erect, to 100 cm tall.

Leaves:
Sheaths smooth; blades flat, folded in young shoots, usually smooth, (1) 2-4 (6) mm wide; ear-shaped lobes at leaf-bases sickle-shaped (rarely lacking); ligules 0.5-2 mm long.

Flowers:
Inflorescence a spike with 5 to 37, 2-ranked, solitary spikelets, 3-30 cm long; spikelets (2-) 5- to 9- (10-) flowered, unstalked, 5-22 mm long, 1-7 mm wide, all but the terminal ones with 1 glume; glumes 3.5-15 mm long, (1/3) 1/2-3/4 (to slightly exceeding) the length of the spikelets; lemmas (3.5) 5-9 mm long, 0.8-2 mm wide, unawned, or if awned, the awns to about 8 mm long, attached about 0.2-0.7 mm below the tips; anthers 2-4.2 mm long.

Notes:
A commercially important species as a popular turf grass and stablizer. On a world-wide basis it is perhaps the single most important forage grass. Since Lolium perenne and L. multiflorum are interfertile and intergrade, they are sometimes considered conspecific. Hybrids between the two species are called Lolium x hybridum Hausskn.