Vascular plants of Poaceae (I) new to Korea: Vulpia bromoides (L.) Gray, Agrostis capillaris L. and Eragrostis pectinacea (Michx.) Nees

Abstract

Poaceae Barnhart, a family of vascular plants, includes approximately 700 genera and 11,000 species in all regions of the world (Chen et al., 2006). In eastern Asia, China has the biggest numbers, 1,795 species of the Poaceae and Japanese grasses without Bonin, Amami and Ryuku islands contain 330 taxa in numbers (Osada, 1989; Chen et al., 2006). In Korea, numbers of grasses were counted to 212 (Lee, 2007), 252 (Korea National Arboretum, 2011) or 305 (Lee et al., 2011). The number difference of grass taxa relies on what kind of criterion was applied at the time of counting. For example, Lee et al. (2011) included native Korean grasses, naturalized and cultivated ones in counting numbers. The current study provided three species included in the family Poaceae that were newly reported to Korean vascular plants. We also provide taxonomic keys to the Korean species of genera Vulpia, Agrostis and Eragrostis.