Festuca californica |
Festuca auriculata |
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California fescue |
eared fescue, lobed fescue |
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Habit | Plants densely cespitose, without rhizomes. | Plants densely cespitose, without rhizomes. | ||||||||
Culms | 30-150 (200) cm, glabrous or pubescent, sometimes scabrous. |
8-25(40) cm, erect, smooth, glabrous or pubescent below the inflorescence. |
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Sheaths | closed for less than 1/3 their length, persistent, glabrous or pilose, smooth or scabrous, sometimes scabrous or pilose only distally or on the distal margins; collars usually densely pubescent or with a few hairs at the margins, sometimes glabrous; ligules 0.2-5 mm, usually ciliate, abaxial surfaces puberulent; blades 1-6.5 mm wide, conduplicate, convolute, or flat, 0.5-2(2.5) mm in diameter when convolute, deciduous, abaxial surfaces scabrous or smooth, glabrous or the bases pubescent, adaxial surfaces puberulent to pubescent, veins 9-15(17), ribs (3)5-15(17); abaxial sclerenchyma forming more or less continuous bands, sometimes reduced to small strands; adaxial sclerenchyma sometimes present; girders or pillars present at most veins. |
closed for about 1/2 their length, smooth or scabrous, glabrous or puberulent, persistent; collars glabrous; ligules 0.1-0.5 mm; blades 0.4-0.8(1) mm in diameter, conduplicate, abaxial surfaces glabrous, pubescent, or pilose, all conditions often present on the same plant, scabrous at the apices, adaxial surfaces scabrous or pubescent on the ribs, veins 5-7, ribs 3-5, 1 distinct and 2-4 indistinct; abaxial sclerenchyma in 3 strands, 2 marginal and 1 opposite the midvein, rarely with 2 additional strands, the strands narrower than the veins and usually less than twice as wide as high; adaxial sclerenchyma strands absent; flag leaf blades 0.5-2 cm. |
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Inflorescences | 10-25(30) cm, open, with (1)2(4) branches per node; branches spreading and lax. |
2-3.5 cm, racemes or panicles, contracted, with 1(2) branches per node; branches erect, lower branches usually with 1-2 spikelets. |
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Spikelets | 8-18(20) mm, borne towards the ends of the branches, with 3-6(8) florets. |
5-6.5(8) mm, with 3-5(6) florets. |
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Glumes | lanceolate, glabrous or sparsely scabrous at the apices; lower glumes (4)4.5-6.7(8) mm; upper glumes (5)6-10 mm; lemmas (7)7.5-11 mm, lanceolate, scabrous, puberulent, sometimes minutely bidentate, acute, usually awned, rarely unawned, awns (1)2-3(4) mm; paleas shorter than to longer than the lemmas, pubescent or glabrous on the margins, intercostal region usually puberulent distally; anthers (3)4-7.5(8.5) mm; ovary apices densely pubescent. |
exceeded by the upper florets, ovate to lanceolate, glabrous, sometimes scabrous distally; lower glumes about 3 mm; upper glumes about 4 mm; lemmas 4-5 mm, ovate to ovate-lanceolate, glabrous, sometimes scabrous towards the apices, apices acute, awns 0.8-2(2.5) mm, terminal; paleas about as long as the lemmas, intercostal region smooth or scabrous distally; anthers 2-3.5 mm; ovary apices glabrous. |
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2n | = 56. |
= 14. |
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Festuca californica |
Festuca auriculata |
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Distribution |
CA; OR
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AK; YT |
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Discussion | Festuca californica grows on dry, open slopes and moist streambanks in thickets and open woods, from sea level to 2000 m. Its range extends from Clackamas County, Oregon, to the Sierra Nevada and southern California; it is not known to extend into Mexico. It is the largest species of Festuca in the Flora region. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Festuca auriculata is an amphiberingian species that extends from the Ural Mountains of Russia through Alaska to the western continental Northwest Territories. It grows on dry, rocky cliffs and slopes, in low arctic and alpine regions. In the Flora region, this species seems to intergrade with, and is sometimes included in, F. lenensis (see next). The two species tend to differ in their leaf surfaces as well as in the width of their sclerenchyma strands. Festuca auriculata has also frequently been included in F. ovina (p. 422). (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
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Key |
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Source | FNA vol. 24, p. 410. | FNA vol. 24, p. 424. | ||||||||
Parent taxa | Poaceae > subfam. Pooideae > tribe Poeae > Festuca > subg. Festuca > sect. Breviaristatae | Poaceae > subfam. Pooideae > tribe Poeae > Festuca > subg. Festuca > sect. Festuca | ||||||||
Sibling taxa | ||||||||||
Subordinate taxa | ||||||||||
Name authority | Vasey | Drobow | ||||||||
Web links |