Muhly Grasses and the Muhlenberg Family, with Notes on the Pietist Movement and the Pietistic Ecology Item Type Article Authors Crosswhite, Frank S.; Crosswhite, Carol D. Publisher University of Arizona (Tucson, AZ) Journal Desert Plants Rights Copyright © Arizona Board of Regents. The University of Arizona. Download date 10/10/2021 16:06:16 Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/554261 3 MuhlenbergCrosswhite The Importance of Grasses Muhly Grasses and the Of the approximately 300 families of higher (vascular) plants Muhlenberg Family, with of the world, the most important are the Grass Family (Gramineae) and the Legume Family (Leguminosae). Al- Notes on the Pietist Movement though international rules long ago tried to require that the names of all plant families end uniformly in -aceae (in which and Pietistic Ecology case the Gramineae would be the "Poaceae" and the Leguminosae the "Fabacaeae "), the names Gramineae and Leguminosae, due to the great importance of the families Frank S. Crosswhite and they represent, have always been specifically excepted, the Carol D. Crosswhite names being "grandfathered" by long usage. The importance of the Gramineae lies not only in the fact that corn, oats, barley, wheat, rye and rice are all members, but in the fact The University of Arizona that the grasses of the world's pastures, steppes, savannas, Boyce Thompson Southwestern Arboretum meadows and rangelands nourish both wild and domestic 37615 Highway 60 foraging and grazing animals. The single most important plant Superior, Arizona 85273 species on earth is the grass species known as rice (Oryza sativa). The dependency is so great that millions of people would die of starvation if a disease suddenly caused rice to become extinct. Others might decry the extinction of barley (Hordeum vulgare), the source of beer, or of wheat (Triticum Introduction aestivum), the source of bread. To many plant ecologists, Generations of plant scientists, range managers, soil con-Muhly Grasses are as important as rice, barley, or wheat. servation experts, Forest Service personnel and others have spent their careers dealing in part with what they casuallyMuhly Grasses in the New Taxonomy of Gramineae refer to as "Muhly Grass." Usually they pronounce "Muhly" Grasses represent one of the most important families of plants as if it were the adjectival form of the English word for the in Arizona. Muhlenbergia is the largest genus of grasses in cross between a donkey and a mare, the mule. The majority Arizona. It has a special type of leaf anatomy and a special of these people have been interested in grasses as forages asphotosynthetic pathway associated with it that allows its species well as in the impact of foraging animals on grasses. Withto thrive in hot and dry places like Arizona. Muhlenbergia and such interests they are basically ecologists, who, like all who other grass genera with this special leaf anatomy and pho- study grasses, must give constant effort to the attention to tosynthetic pathway are placed in the subfamily detail. Not unexpectedly they gave special names to variousChloridoideae of the Gramineae. Some other genera in this types of Muhly Grass, calling them by such names as Deerarid- adapted subfamily are Distichlis, Eragrostis, Grass and Bull Grass because of their perceived value asSporobolus, Tridens, Bouteloua, Cynodon and Hilaria. forage for deer or bulls. Perhaps some deep- seated psycho- logical need to associate this important genus of grasses withThe Grass Family is divided into five subfamilies and 21 a grazing animal promoted universal acceptance of the name tribes, based on anatomical, chromosomal and physiologi- Muhly. Some would indict this theory as not just a little bit cal criteria. Some of these groups are very ill- adapted to Ari- squirrely, however, as they would perceive that the namezona. The tribe Oryzeae, consisting of rice and other aquatic Muhly had its origin in the simple desire by ecologists notor marsh grasses is an example. The tribe Poeae, consisting to have to pronounce the five syllable genus Muhlenbergiaof cool -climate bluegrasses, fescues and similar genera, does repeatedly. Ecologists came to an understanding that theywell in Kentucky or northern Arizona, but poorly in the hot- would speak of Muhlenbergia porteri, Muhlenbergiater and drier parts of Arizona. Although the tribe Bromeae wrightii, and Muhlenbergia pungens in more intimate ver-(brome grasses) and tribe Triticeae (cereal grasses) are com- nacular as Bush Muhly, Spike Muhly and Sand -Hill Muhly.posed of cool climate plants which lack the special photo- synthetic pathway of the subfamily Chloridoideae, they have The object of the present paper, after discussing the genusdeveloped annual species which, upon introduction to Muhlenbergia and some of the types of Muhly Grass used southern Arizona, thrive in the winter. Examples are the per- in landscaping in Arizona, is to take the reader into the inti- nicious weed Bromus rubens and one of Arizona's most im- macy of the human Muhlenberg family for which the grass portant crops, winter wheat (Triticum aestivum). genus Muhlenbergia was named and then into the mysteries of German Pietism and Pietistic ecology. The MuhlenbergsDisregarding the introduced winter annuals, the Muhly were deeply rooted in the German Pietist Movement of theGrasses and their cohorts in subfamily Chloridoideae are late Seventeenth and early Eighteenth Centuries and wereundoubtedly the most important grasses in the arid South- an important bridge of Pietistic ecological ethic between that western United States. Aside from the native species there movement and mainstream America. have been very successful introductions of other species of 4 Desert Plants1997 Chloridoideae having the special heat and arid adapted pho-ondary disarticulation (due to another zone of abscission) tosynthetic pathway. Examples are the weedy bermuda grass may occur below the spikelets so that the glumes are not (Cynodon dactylon) and Gulf Muhly Grass (Regal MistTM) retained on the plant. If the glumes, lemma and palea are all (Muhlenbergia capillaris) principally of sandy soils in theretained on the plant when the grain falls, the species prob- West Indies, Yucatan and the Gulf and Atlantic states. ably belongs to the genus Sporobolus. Before recent anatomical, chromosomal and physiologicalMuhlenbergia has no single striking unique characteristic. studies, Muhlenbergia was misclassified in the tribeThe genus and its species can be defined only with great Agrostideae with the genera Agrostis, Calamogrostis andattention to detail and use of a hand -lens. The generic name Polypogon, which have proven not to have the special leafMuhlenbergia memorializes the Muhlenberg family of Penn- anatomy nor the special photosynthetic pathway. These lat-sylvania, the material used by Johann Christian Daniel von ter genera are now classified with cool climate oats (Avena Schreber in defining the genus having come from Rev. sativa) in the tribe Aveneae. Similarly, Eragrostis, which is Gotthilf Heinrich Ernst Muhlenberg of Lancaster County, now linked with Muhlenbergia, Sporobolus and several otherPennsylvania. Schreber was a professor at Erlangen, Ger- genera to form tribe Eragrostideae in the Chloridoideae, had many and was editor of the eighth edition of Linnaeus' Gen- been misclassified with Poa, Bromus and Festuca (cool cli- era Plantarum. mate grasses which lack Chloridoid adaptations) in the tribe Festuceae. In both old and new classifications MuhlenbergiaApproximately 70 species of Muhlenbergia occur in the has always been considered closely related to Sporobolus,United States. Many are important range grasses, particu- the difference being that in Sporobolus the grain at maturity larly in the western United States where the genus comprises falls away from the lemma and palea, giving rise to the name an important percentage of the grass flora of hot and dry Dropseed for the latter genus. regions. Of great importance as forage are New Mexican Muhly (Muhlenbergia pauciflora) of rocky hills and can- The delicate, much branched panicle that is so striking inyons in western Texas, Colorado, Utah and Arizona, south some species of Muhly Grass (e.g. Muhlenbergia capillaris)to northern Mexico, Spike Muhly (Muhlenbergia wrightii) is also found in some grasses of the tribe Paniceae in sub-of plains and open slopes of intermediate elevations in Okla- family Paniccrideae (e.g. Panicum capillare) and in manyhoma, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona and northern species of Lovegrass (Eragrostis). Chloridoid anatomy andMexico and Mountain Muhly (Muhlenbergia montana) of physiology recur in the Panicoideae. The specific epithetcanyons, mesas and rocky hills of higher elevations from capillaris refers to the much -branched nature of the inflo-Montana to Utah and central California, south to Arizona, rescence, like the intricate capillaries of a person's circula- new Mexico, western Texas and southern Mexico. tory system. Love when applied to a plant usually refers to a tender, delicate, complex display probably best understoodLittleseed Muhly (Muhlenbergia microsperma), with cleis- in modern language by the adjectival equivalent "lovely," intogamous spikelets at the base of the lower sheaths, occurs Eragrostis again referring to the complex capillary -likeon open dry ground of southern California, Nevada and Ari- panicle. Such similarities of inflorescence are rarely con-zona, south to Peru. Pull -up Muhly (Muhlenbergia sidered as conservative characters for classification