Deschampsia flexuosa
Deschampsia sukatschewii
Appalachian hairgrass, common hairgrass, crinkled hairgrass, deschampsie flexueuse, wavy hair-grass
deschampsie naine
30-80 cm, erect or geniculate at the base, usually with 2 nodes.
5-70 cm, erect or strongly geniculate at the first node, glabrous.
mostly basal, sometimes forming a basal tuft;
sheaths smooth, glabrous;
ligules 1.5-3.6 mm, rounded to acute;
blades 12-25 cm long, strongly rolled, 0.3-0.5 mm in diameter, abaxial surfaces smooth or scabridulous, glabrous or hairy, often scabridulous or hairy proximally and essentially smooth and glabrous distally, adaxial surfaces scabrous, flag leaf blades 5-8 cm.
mostly basal, sometimes forming a dense, moss-like tuft 5-20 cm in diameter;
sheaths smooth, glabrous;
ligules 1.5-8 mm, acute;
blades 0.5-8 cm long, usually strongly rolled and 0.5-1.3 mm in diameter, rarely flat and to 1.5(2) mm wide, abaxial surfaces smooth, adaxial surfaces with 3-5(6) ribs, ribs smooth, the outer ribs sometimes scabrous.
5-15 cm long, (2)4-12 cm wide, narrow to open, often nodding;
branches ascending to spreading, flexuous, smooth or scabridulous.
3.5-17 cm long, 1.5-9 cm wide, usually open and pyramidal, sometimes closed and ovate;
branches 0.5-6 cm, spreading to reflexed, flexuous, smooth.
4-7 mm, ovate or U-shaped.
3.5-5.2 mm, shiny, purplish, with 2(3) florets.
exceeded by or subequal to the adjacent florets, 1-veined, acute;
lower glumes 2.7-4.5 mm;
upper glumes 3.5-5 mm;
callus hairs to 1 mm;
lemmas 3.3-5 mm, scabridulous or puberulent, hairs to 0.1 mm, apices acute, erose to 4-toothed, awns 3.7-7 mm, attached near the base of the lemma, strongly geniculate, geniculation below the lemma apices, distal segment 2.5-4.5 mm, pale;
anthers 2-3 mm.
lanceolate, sometimes purplish over the proximal 1/2, acute to acuminate;
lower glumes 2.7-4.8 mm, 0.8-0.9 times the length of the spikelets, 1-3-veined, veins smooth;
upper glumes 3-5 mm, equaling or exceeding the lowest floret, 1-5-veined;
callus hairs 0.3-1 mm;
lemmas 2-4 mm, smooth, shiny, glabrous, sometimes purplish distally, apices rounded or truncate, erose, awns 0.8-2.5 mm, arising at or below midlength, straight, slender, only slightly or not exserted;
anthers 0.7-2.5 mm.
= 14, 26, 28, 32, 42.
= 26, 28, 36, ca. 39.
Deschampsia flexuosa
Deschampsia sukatschewii
Deschampsia flexuosa grows on dry, often rocky slopes, and in woods and thickets, often in disturbed sites. In the Flora region, it is primarily eastern in distribution, with records from west of the Great Lakes and Appalachians probably being introductions. It is also known from Mexico, Central America, South America, Borneo, the Philippines, and New Zealand.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Deschampsia sukatschewii is a circumboreal species that extends from northern Russia through Alaska, northern Canada, and Greenland to Svalbard, and southward in the Rocky Mountains to Nevada and Utah. It ranges from short plants that form dense, mossy tufts on the Arctic coast to larger plants in subalpine and alpine habitats of the Rocky Mountains that have frequently been included in D. cespitosa.
Arctic taxonomists recognize two subspecies of Deschampsia sukatschewii in arctic North America: the amphiberingian subsp. orientalis (Hulten) Tzvelev that extends to the northern coast of Alaska and the western Northwest Territories; and subsp. borealis (Trautv.) Tzvelev, which is circumpolar in the arctic. Chiapella and Probatova (2003) treated these two subspecies, and subsp. sukatschewii, as subspecies of D. cespitosa. Efforts to circumscribe infraspecific taxa of D. sukatschewii for this treatment failed.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
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