Flora of North America species comparison

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Aristida californica

Poaceae tribe Aristideae

California three-awn, Mojave three-awn
Habit Plants perennial; sometimes flowering the first year.
Culms

10-40 cm, highly branched above the base in age;

internodes glabrous or pubescent, sometimes nearly lanose.

Leaves

cauline;

sheaths shorter than the internodes, glabrous or puberulent;

collars glabrous or pubescent at the sides;

ligules 0.5-1 mm;

blades usually less than 6 cm long, 0.5-1 mm wide, pale green, involute, glabrous or puberulent abaxially.

Inflorescences

paniculate or racemose, 5-10 cm long, 1-2 cm wide, with few spikelets;

rachis nodes glabrous or with straight hairs;

primary branches 1-2 cm, appressed, without axillary pulvini.

Spikelets

appressed.

Glumes

unequal, 1-2-veined;

lower glumes 4-10 mm;

upper glumes 7-15 mm;

calluses about 1 mm;

lemmas 5-7 mm, purple or mottled, junction of the lemma and awns evident;

awns twisted together basally into a 4-26 mm column, free portions 12-50 mm, those of the central and lateral awns similar in length, curved to arcuate basally, straight and divergent distally, disarticulating at the base of the column at maturity;

anthers 3, about 2 mm long.

2n

= 22.

Aristida californica

Poaceae tribe Aristideae
Distribution
from FNA
AZ; CA
[WildflowerSearch map]
[BONAP county map]
Discussion

The range of both varieties of Aristida californica extends from the southwestern United States into northwestern Mexico.

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)

See subfamily description.

The tribe Aristideae has three genera and 300-350 species, and is primarily pan-tropical in its distribution. Its members are usually readily recognized by their terete, 3-awned lemmas with overlapping margins. Aristida, which has many more species than the other two genera combined, is the only genus found in the Americas.

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Key
1. Cauline internodes puberulent to nearly lanose
var. californica
1. Cauline internodes glabrous
var. glabrata
Source FNA vol. 25, p. 319. FNA vol. 25, p. 314. Author: Kelly W. Allred;.
Parent taxa Poaceae > subfam. Aristidoideae > tribe Aristideae > Aristida Poaceae > subfam. Aristidoideae
Sibling taxa
A. adscensionis, A. arizonica, A. basiramea, A. condensata, A. desmantha, A. dichotoma, A. divaricata, A. floridana, A. gypsophila, A. gyrans, A. havardii, A. lanosa, A. longespica, A. mohrii, A. oligantha, A. palustris, A. pansa, A. patula, A. purpurascens, A. purpurea, A. ramosissima, A. rhizomophora, A. schiedeana, A. simpliciflora, A. spiciformis, A. stricta, A. ternipes, A. tuberculosa
Subordinate taxa
A. californica var. californica, A. californica var. glabrata
Name authority Thurb. C.E. Hubb.
Web links 
Unless otherwise noted, all data comes from the online version of the Flora of North America, who have made most of their content available via a Creative Commons license (CC BY 4.0).



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