Great Basin Wildrye

Leymus cinereus

Poaceae

• Spokane Native
• Full sun to part shade
• 3–5 ft tall (to 7 ft with moisture) × 2–4 ft wide
• Drought Tolerant: Yes – once established; excellent drought and heat tolerance
• Flower Color: Erect awnless seed spikes, (early to midsummer)
• Wildlife Benefits: Cover & nesting for birds/small mammals; winter cover & forage for big game

Basin wildrye is a large, robust, cool-season perennial bunchgrass and a verified native of eastern Washington's sagebrush-steppe. It is widely distributed across western North America and grows in a broad range of habitats, from wet meadows, valley bottoms, floodplains, and riverbanks to dry slopes and sagebrush plains.  It tolerates a wide range of soils including clay, silt, sand, and weakly saline conditions, and it withstands both drought and fire. It grows in full sun to part shade. Establishment is slow, spring-planted stock may take two years to flower, so patience pays off; most regeneration in the wild occurs through tillering and short rhizomes.

This is the largest cool-season bunchgrass native to the western United States, forming dense, upright clumps 3 to 5 feet tall (up to 7 feet with ample moisture) and 2 to 4 feet across, underlain by a deep, fibrous root system. The foliage is a distinctive deep blue-green to gray, with coarse, flat blades that lend a bold, statuesque presence. Growth begins early in spring; tall, erect, awnless seed spikes 4 to 11 inches long appear in early to midsummer and remain conspicuous and attractive for many months, carrying the plant through fall and into winter. Note that after setting seed the plant becomes coarse and stemmy with little fresh regrowth, so a cut-back can refresh its appearance.

As a tall, dense bunchgrass, basin wildrye provides excellent cover and nesting habitat for songbirds and small mammals and offers standing winter cover and forage for big game such as deer and elk, which turn to it when other food is buried under snow. It is a valued reclamation and erosion-control grass and is often planted as a living windbreak or snow-catch barrier. Ethnobotanically, it was an important wild grain for Native peoples, who harvested its seed sustainably; early accounts describe stands so tall they hid horse and rider, a reminder of how abundant this grass once was before grazing and development reduced it.

Basin wildrye makes a commanding vertical accent, a summer-through-winter screen to soften a fence or hide utilitarian features, and an anchor for large-scale native and sagebrush-steppe plantings, give it room to reach full size. It sits naturally within a steppe community alongside big sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata), rabbitbrush (Ericameria nauseosa), bluebunch wheatgrass (Pseudoroegneria spicata), Idaho fescue (Festuca idahoensis), Indian ricegrass (Achnatherum hymenoides), and showy natives such as showy milkweed (Asclepias speciosa) and blanket flower. In a design it appreciates the moister zones and run-on microsites more than the driest corners.