Festuca californica |
Festuca frederikseniae |
|||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
California fescue |
Frederksen's fescue, fétuque de frederiksen |
|||||||||
Habit | Plants densely cespitose, without rhizomes. | Plants densely cespitose, without rhizomes. | ||||||||
Culms | 30-150 (200) cm, glabrous or pubescent, sometimes scabrous. |
(5)10-35 (45) cm, pubescent near the inflorescence. |
||||||||
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 or puberulent, persistent; collars glabrous; ligules 0.2-0.5 mm; blades 0.5-0.8 mm in diameter, conduplicate, abaxial surfaces glabrous, smooth or scabrous, adaxial surfaces scabrous or hirsute, veins (3)5-7, ribs 3-5, 1 distinct and 2-4 indistinct; abaxial sclerenchyma in 3-7 broad, sometimes confluent strands, covering 1/2 or more of the surface. |
||||||||
Inflorescences | 10-25(30) cm, open, with (1)2(4) branches per node; branches spreading and lax. |
(1.5)2-10 cm, contracted, with 1(2) branches per node; branches erect, stiff, lower branches with 2+ spikelets. |
||||||||
Spikelets | 8-18(20) mm, borne towards the ends of the branches, with 3-6(8) florets. |
pseudoviviparous, varying in length with the stage of vegetative proliferation, the glumes and often 1 or 2 adjacent florets more or less normally developed or only slightly elongated, the distal florets replaced by leafy bracts. |
||||||||
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. |
ovate-lanceolate, densely puberulent to pubescent throughout; lower glumes 2-4.5 mm; upper glumes (2.7)3.8-5.2 mm; normal lemmas 3.5-5 mm, densely hairy to pubescent, sometimes awned, awns to 0.2 mm; vegetative bracts unawned, leaflike, sometimes with ligules; paleas usually reduced or absent, well-formed paleas about as long as the lemmas; anthers usually poorly developed and the pollen sterile, well-formed anthers to about 2.5 mm; ovary apices glabrous. |
||||||||
2n | = 56. |
= 28. |
||||||||
Festuca californica |
Festuca frederikseniae |
|||||||||
Distribution |
CA; OR
|
|||||||||
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 frederikseniae grows on cliffs, rocky or sandy barrens, and alpine regions in southern Quebec (Mingan and Anticosti islands), Newfoundland, southern Labrador, and southern Greenland. It differs from F. vivipara (L.) Sm. of northern Europe and Asia in having densely pubescent spikelet bracts and fascicles, and an interrupted rather than continuous band of blade sclerenchyma. Frederiksen (1981) reported that F. vivipara occurs in southeastern Greenland, overlapping the range of F. frederikseniae and extending as far north as the southerly occurrences of F. viviparoidea subsp. viviparoidea; her paper should be consulted when trying to distinguish the complex pseudoviviparous fescues of Greenland. In Iceland and southern Greenland, putative hybrids between Festuca frederikseniae or F. vivipara and F. rubra (p. 412) have been reported, and named F. villosa-vivipara (Rosenv.) E.B. Alexeev. These plants are highly variable but, unlike F. frederikseniae, produce extravaginal shoots, have closed sheaths, and have blades about 1 mm wide, with 7-9 small strands of abaxial sclerenchyma. Such hybrids can be expected within the range of F. frederikseniae in North America. Festuca frederikseniae has frequently been included in F. ovina (p. 422). (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
||||||||
Key |
|
|||||||||
Source | FNA vol. 24, p. 410. | FNA vol. 24, p. 436. | ||||||||
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 | ||||||||||
Synonyms | F. vivipara subsp. hirsuta | |||||||||
Name authority | Vasey | E.B. Alexeev | ||||||||
Web links |