Milium effusum, the American milletgrass or wood millet, is a species of flowering plant in the grass family Poaceae, native to damp forests of the Holarctic Kingdom.
The Latin specific epithet effusum means "spreading loosely".
Description M. effusum is a shortly rhizomatous, nemoral-mesic grass with an open panicle. The spikelets are about 2.5-5mm long, pedicellate, with no awn on the glume(s) or lemma, and only one fertile floret. The leaves are approximately 5-17mm wide and hairless. The ligule is roughly 3-10mm and membranous. The plant is rare in its southernmost range, as a secure species only in Ontario, Novia Scotia, and New Brunswick, ranging in vulnerability outside of its secure area in its natural range.
Habitat Milium effusum inhabits damp, deciduous woods and shaded banks, where it grows on winter-wet, calcareous to mildly acidic clay and loam soils, and also over rocks in western Scotland.
Distribution It can be found in the northern United States and Canada, and Europe, including Britain but excluding the Mediterranean, east to Siberia and the Himalayas.
Cultivation The yellow-leaved cultivar 'Aureum', known as Bowles' golden grass, is cultivated as an ornamental garden plant, and in the UK has won the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.
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References
Further reading P. de Frenne et al. Biological Flora of the British Isles: Milium effusum, Journal of Ecology, 2017, DOI: 10.1111/1365-2745.12744. Detailed overview of all aspects relevant to ecology and behaviour.