Festuca californica |
Festuca edlundiae |
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California fescue |
Edlund's fescue, 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. |
2.5-10 (14) cm, up to twice as tall as the vegetative shoot leaves, usually geniculate to prostrate, erect at anthesis, 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, smooth or slightly scabrous, persistent; collars glabrous; ligules 0.1-0.5 mm; blades (0.5)0.8-1.1 mm in diameter, conduplicate, usually straight, veins 5-7, ribs 3-5, abaxial surfaces smooth or sparsely scabrous, adaxial surfaces scabrous; abaxial sclerenchyma in 5-7(9) narrow 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. |
1.5-3.5 cm, often racemes, with 1-2 branches per node; branches erect, lower branches with 1-2(3+) spikelets. |
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Spikelets | 8-18(20) mm, borne towards the ends of the branches, with 3-6(8) florets. |
4.5-8.5 mm, with (2)3-6 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 ovate-lanceolate, mostly glabrous and smooth, sometimes scabrous distally; lower glumes 1.8-3.5 mm; upper glumes 2.9—4.3 mm; lemmas 3.6-5.2 mm, scabrous distally, apices entire, awns 1.1-2.9 mm, usually terminal, sometimes slightly subterminal; paleas about as long as or slightly longer than the lemmas, intercostal region scabrous distally; anthers 0.6-1.1 mm; ovary apices glabrous. |
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Flag | leaf sheaths somewhat inflated; flag leaf blades (0.3)0.5-2 cm. |
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2n | = 56. |
= 28. |
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Festuca californica |
Festuca edlundiae |
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Distribution |
CA; OR
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AK; NT; NU; 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 edlundiae is a high arctic species that is closely related to F. brachyphylla (p. 428). It grows primarily on fine-grained and calcareous substrates in arctic regions of the Russian Far East, Alaska, the arctic islands of Canada, northern Greenland, and Svalbard. It resembles F. hyperborea (see previous), differing from it in having flag leaf blades that are usually at least 5 mm long and larger spikelets. Festuca edlunieae has 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. 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 | S. Aiken, Consaul & Lefk. | ||||||||
Web links |