Festuca californica |
Festuca roemeri |
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California fescue |
Oregon fescue, Roemer's 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. |
(35)50-90 (100) cm, erect, 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 less than 1/2 their length, glabrous, hirsute, or scabrous, persistent; collars glabrous; ligules 0.1-0.5 mm; blades 0.5-1(1.2) mm in diameter, conduplicate, abaxial surfaces glabrous or puberulent, adaxial surfaces sometimes scabrous, glabrous or pubescent, veins (5)7-9, ribs 5-9, well defined; abaxial sclerenchyma in 5-7 wide strands, sometimes confluent into a single band; adaxial sclerenchyma absent. |
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Inflorescences | 10-25(30) cm, open, with (1)2(4) branches per node; branches spreading and lax. |
(7)8-20(25) cm, loosely to densely contracted, with 1-2 branches per node; branches erect to slightly spreading, 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. |
9-13.5 mm, with 4-6 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, smooth or scabrous distally; lower glumes (2)2.5-5 mm; upper glumes 4-6.2 mm; lemmas 5-7(8.2) mm, scabrous near the apices, awns (2)3-5 mm, terminal, usually more than 1/2 as long as the lemma bodies; paleas about as long as the lemmas, intercostal region scabrous or puberulent distally; anthers (2.6)2.8-3.6(4) mm; ovary apices glabrous. |
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2n | = 56. |
= unknown. |
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Festuca californica |
Festuca roemeri |
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Distribution |
CA; OR
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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 roemeri grows in grasslands and open forests, primarily west of the Cascade Mountains, from southeastern Vancouver Island southward to northwestern California. (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. 440. | ||||||||
Parent taxa | Poaceae > subfam. Pooideae > tribe Poeae > Festuca > subg. Festuca > sect. Breviaristatae | Poaceae > subfam. Pooideae > tribe Poeae > Festuca > subg. Festuca > sect. Festuca | ||||||||
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Subordinate taxa | ||||||||||
Synonyms | F. idahoensis var. roemeri | |||||||||
Name authority | Vasey | (Pavlick) E.B. Alexeev | ||||||||
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