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Abstract
Some morphological and phenological characters were recorded for plants originating from 81 natural populations of Dactylis glomerata L. collected from all over the Italian peninsula and grown under uniform conditions. In order to assess any relationships between these characters and environmental variables, values of the populations were pooled with various criteria according to some common features of the place of origin. A multiple regression analysis between environmental parameters and plant traits was carried on the whole set of data and on the three latitudinal regions (North, Centre, South), separately.
Some traits displayed a high uniformity, others, particularly those related to inflorescence morphology, are quite variable and do not seem related to micro-environmental variations. These traits should be particularly useful for taxonomic studies.
The data suggest a different control mechanism of the heading date in the Alpine populations. Annual rainfall seems to have some relationships with the distribution of the characters only in the driest areas.