Agrostis densiflora |
Poaceae subfam. pooideae |
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California bent, California bent grass |
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Habit | Plants perennial; not rhizomatous or stoloniferous. | Plants annual or perennial; sometimes matlike, sometimes cespitose, sometimes stoloniferous, sometimes rhizomatous. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Culms | 9-85 cm, erect, sometimes decumbent at the base, sometimes rooting at the lower nodes, usually with 4-7 nodes. |
usually hollow, sometimes solid. |
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Leaves | basal and cauline; sheaths smooth or scabrous; ligules 1-4.8(7.5) mm, dorsal surfaces scabrous, apices truncate to obtuse, erose-lacerate, sometimes ciliolate; blades 2-12 cm long, 2-10 mm wide, upper blades broader than those below, flat. |
distichous; sheaths usually open to the base, varying to closed for nearly their full length; auricles present or absent; abaxial ligules absent; adaxial ligules scarious or membranous, sometimes puberulent or scabridulous, usually not ciliate, cilia sometimes shorter than the base; pseudopetioles rarely present; blades usually linear, sometimes broadly so, venation parallel; cross sections non-Kranz, mesophyll nonradiate, adaxial palisade layer absent, fusoid and arm cells usually absent; midribs usually simple; adaxial bulliform cells present; stomates with parallel-sided subsidiary cells; epidermes usually lacking bicellular microhairs, sometimes with unicellular microhairs, papillae usually absent, when present, rarely more than 1 per cell. |
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Panicles | 2-10 cm long, 0.5-2 cm wide, narrow and spikelike to dense, lobed-lanceolate, bases exserted or enclosed by the upper sheaths at maturity; branches to 1.5 cm, scabrous, appressed, branching at the base and mostly hidden by the spikelets; pedicels about 0.4-3 mm. |
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Inflorescences | usually terminal, panicles, spikes, or racemes, usually ebracteate; disarticulation usually below the florets, sometimes below the glumes, at the rachis nodes, or at the inflorescence bases. |
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Spikelets | lanceolate to narrowly ovate, yellowish, sometimes tinged with purple, or greenish purple. |
usually bisexual, infrequently unisexual or mixed, usually laterally compressed or not compressed, occasionally dorsally compressed, with 1-30 sexual florets, distal floret(s) often reduced, infrequently spikelets with 1-2 reduced or staminate basal florets and a single terminal sexual floret. |
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Glumes | generally equal, 2-3.3 mm, 1-veined, densely scabrous, aculeolate on the veins, narrowly acute to acuminate or somewhat mucronate, mucros to about 0.5 mm; callus hairs to 0.3 mm, usually dense; lemmas 1.5-2.1 mm, smooth or scabridulous, translucent, (3)5-veined, veins prominent to obscure, sometimes prominent only distally, apices acute to obtuse, veins usually extended as teeth up to 0.3 mm, unawned or awned from above midlength, awns to 3.5 mm, straight, readily deciduous; paleas 0.3-0.7 mm, thin; anthers 3, 0.5-2 mm. |
usually 2, upper or lower glumes sometimes absent, rarely both glumes absent; lemmas without uncinate hairs, awned or not, awns single, basal to apical; paleas usually well-developed, sometimes reduced or absent; lodicules 2(3), usually lanceolate and broadly membranous distally, rarely truncate and fleshy, usually not veined or obscurely veined, sometimes distinctly veined, sometimes ciliate; anthers (1, 2)3; ovaries glabrous or sometimes hairy distally, sometimes with an apical appendage; haustorial synergids absent; styles (1)2 (-4), bases close together, sometimes fused. |
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Caryopses | 1-1.5 mm; endosperm solid. |
hila linear, elliptic, ovate, or punctate; endosperm usually hard, sometimes soft or liquid, with or without lipids, starch grains compound or simple; embryos less than 1/2 the length of the caryopses; epiblasts usually present; scutellar cleft usually absent; mesocotyl internode usually absent; embryonic leaf margins overlapping, x = 7, 10. |
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2n | = 42. |
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Agrostis densiflora |
Poaceae subfam. pooideae |
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Distribution |
CA; OR
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Discussion | Agrostis densiflora is endemic to coastal Oregon and California. It grows in sandy soils, on cliffs, and in scrublands. It appears to be related to A. exarata (see previous), and hybridizes with A. blasdalei (p. 656). (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
The subfamily Pooideae includes approximately 3300 species, making it the largest subfamily in the Poaceae. It reaches its greatest diversity in cool temperate and boreal regions, extending across the tropics only in high mountains. The circumscription and relationships of tribes within the Pooideae are unsettled (see, for example, Catalan et al. 1997, 2004; Soreng and Davis 1998). In this flora, some previously recognized tribes have been combined with the Poeae. Recognition of some of these as subtribes is well supported; among these is the Hainardieae Greuter (which, at the subtribal level, is called the Parapholiinae Caro). Members of other traditional tribal groupings, such as the Aveneae Dumort., appear to be widely dispersed within the Poeae sensu lato. Further work will probably support the division of the expanded Poeae into additional tribes; there is as yet no clear indication as to what the boundaries of such tribes should be. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
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Key |
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Source | FNA vol. 24, p. 651. | FNA vol. 24, p. 57. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Parent taxa | Poaceae > subfam. Pooideae > tribe Poeae > Agrostis | Poaceae | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Synonyms | A. clivicola var. punta-reyensis, A. californica | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Name authority | Vasey | Benth. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Web links |