Festuca californica |
Festuca sect. Breviaristatae |
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California fescue |
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Habit | Plants densely cespitose, without rhizomes. | Plants usually densely cespitose, sometimes loosely cespitose, rhizomes short or absent. | ||||||||
Culms | 30-150 (200) cm, glabrous or pubescent, sometimes scabrous. |
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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. |
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Blades | usually more or less stiff, conduplicate, sometimes convolute or flat; ribs usually distinct; sclerenchyma girders usually present at the major veins, rarely absent. |
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Inflorescences | 10-25(30) cm, open, with (1)2(4) branches per node; branches spreading and lax. |
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Spikelets | 8-18(20) mm, borne towards the ends of the branches, with 3-6(8) 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. |
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Innovations | mostly intravaginal. |
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Calluses | wider than long, scabrous on the margins; lemmas chartaceous, sometimes somewhat coriaceous, apices entire, awned or unawned; ovary apices usually pubescent, sometimes sparsely pubescent, rarely glabrous. |
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2n | = 56. |
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Festuca californica |
Festuca sect. Breviaristatae |
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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 sect. Breviaristatae is distributed in Asia and North America. It contains about 15 species. (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. 406. | ||||||||
Parent taxa | Poaceae > subfam. Pooideae > tribe Poeae > Festuca > subg. Festuca > sect. Breviaristatae | Poaceae > subfam. Pooideae > tribe Poeae > Festuca > subg. Festuca | ||||||||
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Subordinate taxa | ||||||||||
Name authority | Vasey | Krivot. | ||||||||
Web links |