DISTRIBUTION AND OCCURRENCE
SPECIES: Agrostis gigantea | Redtop 



GENERAL DISTRIBUTION : 
Redtop, native to Europe, has been introduced throughout temperate North
America as a pasture grass.  It occurs from Newfoundland south to the
mountains of northern Georgia and Alabama, west to California, and north to
Alaska.  It is apparently uncommon or absent from the warm, humid
regions of the Gulf Coast and from the desert regions of the Southwest
[15,22,28,33]].


ECOSYSTEMS : 
   Redtop probably occurs in most ecosystems except those of the Gulf Coast.


STATES : 
     AL  AK  AZ  AR  CA  CO  CT  DE  GA  HI
     ID  IL  IN  IA  KS  KY  LA  ME  MD  MA
     MI  MN  MS  MO  MT  NE  NV  NH  NJ  NM
     NY  NC  ND  OH  OK  OR  PA  RI  SC  SD
     TN  TX  UT  VT  VA  WA  WV  WI  WY  AB
     BC  MB  NB  NF  NT  NS  ON  PE  PQ  SK
     YT


ADMINISTRATIVE UNITS : 
     ACAD  ARCH  ASIS  BIHO  BLCA  BRCA
     CACH  CACO  CARE  CURE  CUVA  DINO
     EBLA  FIIS  FODO  GATE  GETT  GLAC
     GOGA  GRTE  GRKO  GRSM  HALE  HOVE
     INDU  JECA  LAVO  MACA  MEVE  MORA
     MOSA  NABR  NERI  NEPE  NOCA  OLYM
     ORCA  OZAR  PETE  PEFO  PIPE  PRWI
     REDW  ROCR  SACR  SAJH  SHEN  TICA
     VOYA  WICR  WICA  YELL  YOSE  ZION


BLM PHYSIOGRAPHIC REGIONS : 
    1  Northern Pacific Border
    2  Cascade Mountains
    3  Southern Pacific Border
    4  Sierra Mountains
    5  Columbia Plateau
    6  Upper Basin and Range
    7  Lower Basin and Range
    8  Northern Rocky Mountains
    9  Middle Rocky Mountains
   10  Wyoming Basin
   11  Southern Rocky Mountains
   12  Colorado Plateau
   13  Rocky Mountain Piedmont
   14  Great Plains
   15  Black Hills Uplift
   16  Upper Missouri Basin and Broken Lands


KUCHLER PLANT ASSOCIATIONS : 
NO-ENTRY


SAF COVER TYPES : 
   210  Interior Douglas-fir
   217  Aspen
   221  Red alder
   222  Black cottonwood-willow
   223  Sitka spruce
   235  Cottonwood-willow


SRM (RANGELAND) COVER TYPES : 
   216  Montane meadows
   313  Tufted hairgrass-sedge
   408  Other sagebrush types
   411  Aspen woodland
   421  Chokecherry-serviceberry-rose
   422  Riparian
   601  Bluestem prairie
   602  Bluestem-prairie sandreed
   802  Missouri prairie
   905  Bluejoint reedgrass
   Redtop may occur in other SRM Cover Types as well.


HABITAT TYPES AND PLANT COMMUNITIES : 
Redtop occurs in wet to moist meadows and grasslands.  It occurs in pure
stands or with sedges (Carex spp.), spikerushes (Eleocharis spp.),
Kentucky bluegrass (Poa pratensis), and quackgrass (Elytrigia repens)
[31,58].  In Montana it occurs with Nebraska sedge (C. nebrascensis),
meadow fescue (Festuca pratensis), Baltic rush (Juncus balticus),
scouringrush horsetail (Equisetum hyemale), and common dandelion
(Taraxacum officinale) [26].  It occurs in the southern Appalachian
grass balds dominated by mountain oatgrass (Danthonia compressa) [40].

Redtop frequently occurs in riparian areas.  Brichta [5] describes
sandbar willow (Salix exigua)/redtop and fowl bluegrass (Poa
palustris)/redtop wetland community types in Montana.  In Malheur
National Wildlife Refuge, Oregon, redtop was one of the dominant grasses
in the flood meadow vegetation which receives 4 to 6 inches (10-15 cm)
of floodwater in April or May [7].  Redtop occurs in the following
riparian dominance types at Malheur:  mountain alder (Alnus incana),
mountain silver sagebrush (Artemisia cana spp. viscidula), sandbar
willow, MacKenzie's willow (Salix prolixa), and Kentucky bluegrass [45].

Redtop also occurs in some open forested communities.  It is an
understory species in the following streamside communities in Olympic
National Park, Washington:  red alder (Alnus rubra), bigleaf maple (Acer
macrophyllum), and Sitka spruce (Picea sitchensis)-western hemlock
(Tsuga heterophylla)-black cottonwood (Populus trichocarpa) [16].
Redtop was present in the pine grass (Calamagrostis rubescens) phase of
the Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii)/twinflower (Linnaea borealis)
habitat type in western Montana [25].

Redtop is described as a community dominant in the following publications:

Environmental relationships among wetland community types of the
  northern range, Yellowstone National Park [5]
Classification and management of Montana's riparian and wetland sites [26]

Related categories for Species: Agrostis gigantea | Redtop