Poa lettermanii |
Poa chambersii |
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Letterman's bluegrass |
Chambers' bluegrass |
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Habit | Plants perennial, 1–12 cm tall; densely cespitose. | Plants perennial, dioecious or gynodioecious, 10–50 cm long; loosely cespitose or with solitary shoots, short-rhizomatous. |
Culms | nodes terete, 0–1 exserted. |
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Basal branching | intra- and extravaginal or mainly intravaginal. |
intra- and extravaginal or mostly intravaginal. |
Leaves | sheaths closed to 25% of their length; ligules 1–3 mm; blades flat or folded, or slightly inrolled, 0.5–2 mm wide. |
sheaths closed 33–88% of their length, bases of basal sheaths glabrous; collars smooth, glabrous; ligules 0.5–2(2.5) mm; cauline blades flat or folded, 2–5 mm wide; smooth or upper surface sparsely scabrous, mainly over the veins; blades gradually reduced up the culm; uppermost blade 0.7–6 cm. |
Inflorescences | erect, contracted, 1–3 cm long, usually exserted from the sheaths; branches erect to steeply ascending; slender; to 1.5 cm. |
erect, lanceoloid to ovoid, tightly to loosely contracted, 2–9 cm; spikelets 15–30; proximal internodes less than 2 cm; branches erect to ascending to slightly spreading, 1–2 per node, 0.9–3.2 cm, with 1–4 spikelets. |
Spikelets | 3–4 mm, green or purple; florets 2–3; rachilla internodes less than 1 mm long; smooth. |
to 3 times as long as wide, 6–12 mm; florets 2–7; rachilla internodes 0.8–1.5 mm long. |
Glumes | lanceolate to broadly lanceolate, 2.4– 3.6(4) mm, usually equaling or exceeding the lowest lemma, frequently exceeding the upper florets; lower glumes 3-veined. |
60–80% as long as adjacent lemmas; lower glumes 3-veined. |
Calluses | glabrous. |
of at least some lower florets with sparse cobwebby hairs, rarely all florets glabrous; hairs 1–2 mm. |
Lemmas | lanceolate, 2.5–3 mm long, distinctly keeled; thin, glabrous; keels and marginal veins rarely sparsely puberulent; tips acute. |
lanceolate, 5–7 mm, distinctly keeled; smooth or sparsely finely scabrous, glabrous throughout or keels and marginal veins sparsely soft-puberulent over the proximal 20%; area between the veins glabrous, 5–7-veined; tips acute. |
Anthers | 0.2–0.8 mm. |
vestigial and 0.1–0.2 mm, aborted late in development, or 1.8–3.7 mm. |
2n | =14. |
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Poa lettermanii |
Poa chambersii |
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Distribution | ||
Discussion | Rocky alpine ridges and ledges. 2900–3100m. Casc. CA, ID, NV, WA; north to British Columbia, east to CO. Native. This is a small, cespitose, alpine bluegrass, most similar to P. suksdorfii. Both have subequal glumes that tend to be longer than the lowest lemma, but P. suksdorfii has larger spikelets with longer glumes. In Oregon, P. lettermanii is known only from high elevation on South Sister in the central Cascades. |
Openings in upland forest and snowmelt pockets in alpine areas. 1700–2800m. BR, Casc. Native. Although some plants may be pistillate, populations always include individuals with functional anthers. Poa chambersii is similar to P. wheeleri and P. cusickii ssp. purpurescens, but the latter have denser inflorescences and only pistillate spikelets. Poa chambersii populations in the Cascades are dioecious; those on Steens Mountain are gynodioecious and will be described as a new species in the future. |
Source | Flora of Oregon, volume 1, page 459 Rob Soreng, Barbara Wilson, Richard Brainerd, Nick Otting |
Flora of Oregon, volume 1, page 454 Rob Soreng, Barbara Wilson, Richard Brainerd, Nick Otting |
Sibling taxa | ||
Web links |
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