Festuca californica |
Festuca versuta |
|||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
California fescue |
Texas fescue |
|||||||||
Habit | Plants densely cespitose, without rhizomes. | Plants loosely cespitose, without rhizomes. | ||||||||
Culms | 30-150 (200) cm, glabrous or pubescent, sometimes scabrous. |
50-100 cm, glabrous, somewhat glaucous; nodes usually exposed. |
||||||||
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 pubescent, shredding into fibers; ligules 0.5-1 mm; blades 2-10 mm wide, flat, loosely conduplicate, or involute, abaxial surfaces smooth or scabrous, glabrous or puberulent, adaxial surfaces smooth or scabrous, veins 13-35, ribs obscure; sclerenchyma in abaxial and adaxial strands; girders formed at most major veins. |
||||||||
Inflorescences | 10-25(30) cm, open, with (1)2(4) branches per node; branches spreading and lax. |
(8)10-30(40) cm, open, with 1-2 branches per node; branches lax, spreading, spikelets borne towards the ends of branches. |
||||||||
Spikelets | 8-18(20) mm, borne towards the ends of the branches, with 3-6(8) florets. |
6-11 mm, sometimes glaucous, with (2)3-5 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. |
lanceolate, smooth or scabrous, acuminate; lower glumes 4-7 mm; upper glumes 5-7.5 mm; lemmas 5-8 mm, chartaceous, lanceolate, glabrous, usually smooth, sometimes scabrous towards the apices, apices acute to acuminate, unawned, sometimes mucronate; paleas as long as or slightly shorter than the lemmas, intercostal region puberulent distally; anthers 2-3 mm; ovary apices densely pubescent. |
||||||||
2n | = 56. |
= unknown. |
||||||||
Festuca californica |
Festuca versuta |
|||||||||
Distribution |
CA; OR
|
AR; KS; OK; TN; TX |
||||||||
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 versuta grows in moist, shaded sites on rocky slopes in open woods, from Oklahoma and Arkansas to Texas. It is an uncommon species. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
||||||||
Key |
|
|||||||||
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. Montanae > sect. Texanae | ||||||||
Sibling taxa | ||||||||||
Subordinate taxa | ||||||||||
Name authority | Vasey | Beal | ||||||||
Web links |