Festuca californica |
Festuca subulata |
|||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
California fescue |
bearded fescue, nodding fescue |
|||||||||
Habit | Plants densely cespitose, without rhizomes. | Plants loosely cespitose, without rhizomes, with short extravaginal tillers. | ||||||||
Culms | 30-150 (200) cm, glabrous or pubescent, sometimes scabrous. |
(35)50-100(120) cm, erect or decumbent at the base, scabrous. |
||||||||
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 73 their length, glabrous or sparsely pubescent, shredding into fibers; collars glabrous; ligules 0.2-0.6(1) mm; blades 3-10 mm wide, flat or loosely convolute, abaxial and adaxial surfaces scabrous or puberulent, veins 13-29, ribs obscure; sclerenchyma in narrow abaxial and adaxial strands; pillars or girders formed at the major veins. |
||||||||
Inflorescences | 10-25(30) cm, open, with (1)2(4) branches per node; branches spreading and lax. |
10-40 cm, open, with 1-2(5) branches per node; branches lax, usually spreading, sometimes reflexed. |
||||||||
Spikelets | 8-18(20) mm, borne towards the ends of the branches, with 3-6(8) florets. |
6-12 mm, with (2)3-5(6) florets. |
||||||||
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. |
sparsely scabrous towards the apices, acuminate to subulate; lower glumes (1.8)2-3(4) mm; upper glumes (2)3-6 mm; calluses wider than long, glabrous, smooth or slightly scabrous; lemmas 5-9 mm, glabrous, sometimes sparsely scabrous, lanceolate, apices entire, acute to acuminate, awned, awns (2.5) 5-15(20) mm, terminal, straight, sometimes curved or kinked; paleas about as long as or slightly longer than the lemmas, intercostal region puberulent distally; anthers 1.5-2.5(3) mm; ovary apices pubescent. |
||||||||
2n | = 56. |
= 28. |
||||||||
Festuca californica |
Festuca subulata |
|||||||||
Distribution |
CA; OR
|
AK; CA; CO; ID; MT; NV; OR; SD; UT; WA; WY; AB; BC
|
||||||||
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 subulata grows on stream banks and in open woods, meadows, shady forests, and thickets, to about 2800 m. Its range extends from the southern Alaska panhandle eastward to southwestern Alberta and western South Dakota, and southward to central California and Colorado. Festuca subulata differs from F. subuliflora (p. 406) in having blunter, glabrous calluses and glabrous, often scabrous or puberulent leaf blades that are obscurely ribbed. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
||||||||
Key |
|
|||||||||
Source | FNA vol. 24, p. 410. | FNA vol. 24, p. 402. | ||||||||
Parent taxa | Poaceae > subfam. Pooideae > tribe Poeae > Festuca > subg. Festuca > sect. Breviaristatae | Poaceae > subfam. Pooideae > tribe Poeae > Festuca > subg. Subulatae > sect. Subulatae | ||||||||
Sibling taxa | ||||||||||
Subordinate taxa | ||||||||||
Name authority | Vasey | Trin. | ||||||||
Web links |
|