261 Lolium perenne L.

This species obviously originates from C. Europe, the Mediterranean region and adjacent parts of Asia. It has been widely spread as a fodder grass, for instance to N. Europe, N. and S. America, Australia and New Zealand. Its present distribution is incompletely circumpolar (Hultén, Circumpol. I, p. 206 and map 195). Cf. also Meusel et al. 1965, map p. 41.