Festuca californica |
Festuca baffinensis |
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California fescue |
Baffin fescue, Baffin Island 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. |
5-25(30) cm, densely pubescent or shortly pilose near 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, glabrous, persistent or slowly shredding into fibers; collars glabrous; ligules 0.1-0.3 mm; blades (0.4)0.6-1(1.2) mm in diameter, conduplicate, abaxial surfaces smooth or sparsely scabrous, adaxial surfaces scabrous or puberulent, veins (3)5-7, ribs 3-5; abaxial sclerenchyma in 3-7 small strands, usually less than twice as wide as high; adaxial sclerenchyma absent. |
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Inflorescences | 10-25(30) cm, open, with (1)2(4) branches per node; branches spreading and lax. |
1.5-4(5) cm, contracted, usually panicles, rarely racemes, usually somewhat secund, with 1-2 branches per node; branches erect, lower branches with 2+ spikelets. |
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Spikelets | 8-18(20) mm, borne towards the ends of the branches, with 3-6(8) florets. |
(4.5)5-7.5(8.5) mm, with (2)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-lanceolate, scabrous distally; lower glumes 2.2-3.7(4) mm; upper glumes 3-5 mm; lemmas (3.5)4-6 mm, scabridulous near the apices, awns 0.8-2.6(3.3) mm, terminal; paleas slightly shorter than to as long as the lemmas, intercostal region scabrous distally; anthers 0.3-0.7 (1.1) mm; ovary apices usually with a few hairs, rarely glabrous. |
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Flag | leaf sheaths usually somewhat loosely enclosing the culms; flag leaf blades 0.5-4 cm. |
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2n | = 56. |
= 28. |
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Festuca californica |
Festuca baffinensis |
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Distribution |
CA; OR
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AK; CO; ID; MT; UT; WY; AB; BC; NT; NU; ON; QC; YT; Greenland |
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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 baffinensis grows chiefly in damp, exposed, gravelly areas in calcareous and volcanic regions. It is circumpolar in distribution, growing in arctic and alpine habitats and extending southward in the Rocky Mountains to Colorado. It has frequently been included in F. ovina (p. 422). It may hybridize with F. brachyphylla (p. 428) and/or other species to form F. viviparoidea (p. 436). (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. 432. | ||||||||
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 | Polunin | ||||||||
Web links |