Festuca occidentalis |
Festuca subg. Festuca |
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western fescue |
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Habit | Plants densely to loosely cespitose, without rhizomes. | Plants loosely or densely cespitose, with or without rhizomes. |
Culms | (25)40-80(110) cm, glabrous, smooth. |
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Sheaths | closed for much less than 1/2 their length, glabrous, somewhat persistent or slowly shredding into fibers; collars glabrous; ligules 0.1-0.4 mm, usually longer at the sides; blades all alike, 0.3-0.7 mm in diameter, conduplicate, abaxial surfaces smooth or scabridulous, veins (3)5, ribs 1-5; abaxial sclerenchyma in 5-7 narrow strands, about as wide as the adjacent veins; adaxial sclerenchyma absent. |
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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 | (5)10-20 cm, open, with 1-2 branches per node; branches 1-15 cm, lax, widely spreading to reflexed, lower branches usually reflexed at maturity, with 2+ spikelets. |
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Spikelets | 6-12 mm, with 3-6(7) florets. |
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Glumes | exceeded by the upper florets, ovate to ovate-lanceolate, glabrous and smooth or slightly scabrous; lower glumes 2-5 mm; upper glumes 3-6 mm; lemmas (4)4.5-6.5(8) mm, ovate-lanceolate to attenuate, glabrous or finely puberulent, awns 3-12 mm, usually longer than the lemma bodies; paleas slightly shorter than the lemmas, intercostal region scabrous or puberulent distally; anthers (1)1.5-2(3) 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 | = 28 [other numbers have been reported for this species, but are probably based on misidentifications]. |
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Festuca occidentalis |
Festuca subg. Festuca |
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Distribution |
AK; CA; ID; MI; MT; OR; SD; UT; WA; WI; WY; AB; BC; ON
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Discussion | Festuca occidentalis grows in dry to moist, open woodlands, forest openings, and rocky slopes, up to 3100 m. It extends from southern Alaska and northern British Columbia to southwestern Alberta, south to southern California and eastward to Wyoming, and, as a disjunct, around the upper Great Lakes in Ontario, eastern Wisconsin, and Michigan. It is sometimes important as a forage grass, but is usually not sufficiently abundant. (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.) |
Source | FNA vol. 24, p. 437. | FNA vol. 24, p. 406. |
Parent taxa | Poaceae > subfam. Pooideae > tribe Poeae > Festuca > subg. Festuca > sect. Festuca | Poaceae > subfam. Pooideae > tribe Poeae > Festuca |
Sibling taxa | ||
Subordinate taxa | ||
Name authority | Hook. | unknown |
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