Festuca californica |
Festuca subg. Festuca |
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California fescue |
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Habit | Plants densely cespitose, without rhizomes. | Plants loosely or densely cespitose, with or without rhizomes. | ||||||||
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, setaceous if lax, usually conduplicate, sometimes convolute or flat; ribs usually distinct; sclerenchyma girders sometimes present at the major veins. |
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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 | intravaginal or extravaginal. |
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Calluses | wider than long, scabrous on the margins; lemmas usually membranous or chartaceous, rarely somewhat coriaceous, usually entire, sometimes minutely bidentate, usually awned, sometimes unawned; ovary apices glabrous or sparsely to densely pubescent. |
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2n | = 56. |
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Festuca californica |
Festuca subg. Festuca |
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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 subg. Festuca is most abundant in the Northern Hemisphere, but it is distributed on all continents except Antarctica. Estimating the number of species in this subgenus is difficult in the absence of adequate treatments for many parts of the world, but it probably exceeds 400. (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 | ||||||||
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Name authority | Vasey | unknown | ||||||||
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