Abstract This account presents information on all aspects of the biology of Leymus chinensis (Trin.) Tzvelev that are relevant to understanding its ecological characteristics and behaviour. The main topics are presented within the standard framework of the International Biological Flora : distribution, habitat, communities, responses to biotic factors, responses to environment, structure and physiology, phenology, floral and seed characters, herbivores and disease, history, conservation and management, and global heterogeneity. Leymus chinensis is a perennial, rhizomatous grass broadly adapted to the temperate semi‐humid and semi‐arid regions of the eastern Eurasian steppe. It is predominantly distributed between latitudes 40°–62° N and longitudes 87°–130° E, encompassing regions of Russia, China, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Japan and North Korea. Leymus chinensis thrives across wide environmental ranges, including annual precipitation from 95 to 800 mm, temperatures from −34.6°C to 40°C and altitudes from 0 to 2285 m. This species can survive abiotic stresses, such as drought, freezing, fire, salinity, alkalinity, nutrient‐deficient soils and trampling from grazing animals. Leymus chinensis propagates both asexually through its extensive rhizome system and sexually via seeds, with the former method being its primary strategy for population maintenance and spatial expansion in natural grasslands. The species is commonly reported as self‐incompatible, with cross‐pollination being typical. The mechanism behind self‐incompatibility is not entirely known. Populations of L. chinensis exhibit extensive intraspecific differences associated with their diverse geographic range, with variations in flower, leaf, spikelet and seed colour, as well as tillering ability. Leymus chinensis is commonly classified into two major ecotypes: the grey‐green and yellow‐green, which display genetic divergence in both physiological and morphological characteristics. Leymus chinensis is a key species for grassland restoration and cultivation, owing to its high forage value and strong resilience to environmental stresses. However, efforts to restore degraded grasslands and develop livestock husbandry using L. chinensis are hampered by significant reproductive barriers, notably low seed germination, low proportion of flowering tillers and low seed setting rates. There is an urgent need for research to determine effective ecological restoration approaches and breeding techniques for new, high‐yield varieties of L. chinensis .
Ma et al. (Sun,) studied this question.