Festuca californica |
Festuca earlei |
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California fescue |
Earle's fescue |
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Habit | Plants densely cespitose, without rhizomes. | Plants loosely cespitose, often with short rhizomes. | ||||||||
Culms | 30-150 (200) cm, glabrous or pubescent, sometimes scabrous. |
(15)20-40(45) cm, glabrous, smooth. |
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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, shredding into fibers, sometimes slowly; collars glabrous; ligules 0.1-0.5(1) mm; blades to 3 mm wide when flat, 0.5-1 (1.5) mm in diameter when conduplicate, veins (3)5, ribs (1)3(5), abaxial surfaces smooth or slightly scabrous, adaxial surfaces sparsely scabrous; abaxial sclerenchyma in 3-5 narrow strands 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. |
3-5(8) cm, contracted, with 1-3 branches per node; branches stiff, erect, scabrous, 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)5-6.5(7) mm, with 2-5 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, lanceolate to ovate-lanceolate, mostly smooth, sometimes scabrous distally; lower glumes 1.5-3 mm; upper glumes 2.5-3.8 mm; lemmas 3-4.5 mm, glabrous or puberulent near the apices, awns (0.3)1-1.5 mm, terminal; paleas as long as or slightly shorter than the lemmas, intercostal region puberulent distally; anthers 0.6-0.9(1.4) mm; ovary apices densely and conspicuously pubescent. |
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2n | = 56. |
= unknown. |
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Festuca californica |
Festuca earlei |
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Distribution |
CA; OR
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AZ; CO; NM; UT |
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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 earlei grows in rich subalpine and alpine meadows, at 2800-3800 m, in Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico. It often grows with the non-rhizomatous species F. brachyphylla subsp. coloradensis (p. 428) and F. minutiflora (p. 434). It can be distinguished from the former by its pubescent ovary apices, and from the latter by its larger spikelets and lemmas. Because of its short rhizomes (which are often missing from herbarium specimens), F. earlei is sometimes confused with members of the F. rubra (p. 412) complex. It differs from them in having pubescent ovary apices and shorter anthers. (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. 420. | ||||||||
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 | Rydb. | ||||||||
Web links |