Festuca californica |
Festuca subverticillata |
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California fescue |
nodding fescue |
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Habit | Plants densely cespitose, without rhizomes. | Plants loosely cespitose, or culms solitary to few in a tuft, without rhizomes. | ||||||||
Culms | 30-150 (200) cm, glabrous or pubescent, sometimes scabrous. |
(40) 50-100(150) cm, glabrous, erect or decumbent at the base. |
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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 1/3 their length, glabrous or sparsely pilose, shredding into fibers; ligules (0.2)0.5-1(2) mm; blades (3)5-10 mm wide, flat or loosely convolute, glabrous or sparsely pilose, smooth or scabrous, veins (11)15-39, ribs obscure; abaxial sclerenchyma in narrow strands; adaxial sclerenchyma developed; girders or pillars usually associated with the major veins. |
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Inflorescences | 10-25(30) cm, open, with (1)2(4) branches per node; branches spreading and lax. |
13-25 cm, open, with 1-2(3) branches per node; branches lax, usually reflexed, sometimes spreading, spikelets borne towards the ends of the branches, not or only slightly imbricate. |
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Spikelets | 8-18(20) mm, borne towards the ends of the branches, with 3-6(8) florets. |
4-5(7) mm, elliptic to ovate, with 2-4(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. |
ovate-lanceolate, scabrous on the veins and distal margins; lower glumes 2.5-3.5 mm, usually distinctly shorter than the adjacent lemmas; upper glumes 3-4(4.7) mm; lemmas 3-4.5 mm, ovate-lanceolate to ovate, stiffly chartaceous, glabrous, obtuse or somewhat acute, unawned; paleas as long as or slightly shorter than the lemmas, intercostal region smooth or scabridulous distally; anthers (0.8)1-1.7(2.2) mm; ovary apices pubescent. |
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2n | = 56. |
= 42. |
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Festuca californica |
Festuca subverticillata |
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Distribution |
CA; OR
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AL; AR; CT; DC; DE; FL; GA; IA; IL; IN; KS; KY; LA; MA; MD; ME; MI; MN; MO; MS; NC; ND; NE; NH; NJ; NY; OH; OK; PA; RI; SC; SD; TN; TX; VA; VT; WI; WV; MB; NB; NS; ON; QC
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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 subverticillata grows in moist to dry, deciduous or mixed forests with organic rocky soils, from Manitoba to Nova Scotia, south to eastern Texas, Florida, and north-eastern Mexico. Plants that are sparsely pilose over the sheaths and blades have been named F. subverticillata f. pilosifolia (Dore) Darbysh. They frequently grow in mixed populations with F. subverticillata (Pers.) E.B. Alexeev f. subverticillata. Festuca subverticillata resembles F. paradoxa (see next), but its spikelets are less crowded on the branches. (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. 400. | ||||||||
Parent taxa | Poaceae > subfam. Pooideae > tribe Poeae > Festuca > subg. Festuca > sect. Breviaristatae | Poaceae > subfam. Pooideae > tribe Poeae > Festuca > subg. Obtusae | ||||||||
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Subordinate taxa | ||||||||||
Synonyms | F. obtusa forma pilosifolia, F. obtusa | |||||||||
Name authority | Vasey | (Pers.) E.B. Alexeev | ||||||||
Web links |