Atlas of North European vascular plants
280 Elymus arenarius L.
Syn.: Leymus arenarius (L.) Hochst.
The map shows the distribution of this polymorphic species with closely related taxa. For the taxonomy of this complex see for instance Bowden in Canad. J. Bot. 35/1957, p. 951-993, and Hultén in Fl. Alaska and Yukon 2/1942, p. 270 f., and in Circumpol. I, p. 196. The subsp. arenarius is restricted to sandy shores of N. and W. Europe and, mostly as an introduced plant, to a few inland places. It has been introduced into Chile and New Zealand. Subsp. mollis (Trin.) Hult. has a wide range in the Pacific E. Asia and N. America and in the rest of northern N. America and Greenland. Further, the closely related, mainly Asiatic E. racemosus (Lam.) Tzvel. (syn.: E. giganteus Vahl) is tentatively mapped. These three taxa are also mapped in Meusel et al. 1965, p. 43.