"[3] Found in the forest regions throughout Europe and stretching as far as west Asia, Elymus caninus is a type of self-pollinating wheatgrass.

[5] Morphological differences seen throughout E. caninus populations include: the number of florets per spikelet, the length of lemma awn, and the pubescence of leaves and their sheaths.

[6] Populations from China, Italy, Pakistan, and Russia were determined to have the lowest levels of intra-population variation among E. caninus morphologies.

[8] Being an allotetraploid, E. caninus derives its genome (StStHH) from both new and old world Pseudoroegneria (St) as well as from the small-seeded Hordeum (H) species.

A fixed heterozygosity occurs when the diploid parental genomes are homozygous for different alleles, and this trait has been reported in other Elymus species.