Calamagrostis tacomensis |
Poaceae subfam. pooideae |
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Rainier reedgrass, Tacoma reedgrass |
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Habit | Plants without sterile culms; cespitose, sometimes densely so, usually without rhizomes, sometimes with rhizomes about 2 cm long, 2-3 mm thick. | Plants annual or perennial; sometimes matlike, sometimes cespitose, sometimes stoloniferous, sometimes rhizomatous. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Culms | (20)30-55(95) cm, unbranched, smooth or slightly scabrous beneath the panicles; nodes (1)2(5). |
usually hollow, sometimes solid. |
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Sheaths | and collars smooth or slightly scabrous; ligules (3)3.5-5.5(6) mm, usually truncate to obtuse, usually entire, sometimes lacerate; blades (6)7-14(30) cm long, (1.5)2-2.5(4) mm wide, flat, abaxial surfaces usually smooth, rarely slightly scabrous, adaxial surfaces usually slightly scabrous, rarely smooth, glabrous or sparsely hairy. |
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Leaves | 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 | (5)7-10(18) cm long, (0.5)1-2(3) cm wide, loosely contracted, sometimes open, erect to slightly nodding, shiny green and purple; branches (2)2.3-4(6) cm, scabrous, usually spikelet-bearing on the distal 2/3, sometimes to the base. |
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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 | (4)6-6.5(7) mm; rachilla prolongations 1.5-2(2.5) mm, hairs (1.5)2(3) mm. |
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 | often green with a purple patch at the base, keeled, keels smooth or sparsely scabrous on the distal 1/2, lateral veins usually prominent, apices usually acute, sometimes short-acuminate, not twisted; callus hairs (1.2)2(2.5) mm, (0.3)0.4-0.5(0.6) times as long as the lemmas, abundant; lemmas (3.5)4-5(5.5) mm, (0.5)1.5-2(3) mm shorter than the glumes; awns (5.5)7-8.5(10) mm, attached to the lower 1/10-1/3 of the lemmas, exserted more than 2 mm, easily distinguished from the callus hairs, strongly bent; anthers (1)2-3(3.5) 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 | 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 | = unknown. |
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Calamagrostis tacomensis |
Poaceae subfam. pooideae |
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Distribution |
OR; WA
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Discussion | Calamagrostis tacomensis grows on montane to alpine slopes in dry or wet meadows, seeps, rocky talus slopes, and cliff crevices, at 400-2200 m. It grows only in the mountains of western Washington and in the Steens Mountains of southeastern Oregon. It reaches its highest known elevations in the Steens Mountains. This species has previously been identified as either Calamagrostis purpurascens (p. 710) (C.L. Hitchcock et al. 1969) or C. sesquiflora (p. 714) (Kawano 1965). It differs from C. purpurascens in having glabrous leaves, generally longer awns and inflorescence branches, and smoother glumes. It differs from C. sesquiflora in having narrower leaves, callus hairs that are longer relative to the lemmas, longer inflorescence branches, and glume apices that are not twisted, as well as in often preferring drier habitats. (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. 716. | FNA vol. 24, p. 57. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Parent taxa | Poaceae > subfam. Pooideae > tribe Poeae > Calamagrostis | Poaceae | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Name authority | K.L. Marr & Hebda | Benth. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Web links |