Melica porteri |
Melica imperfecta |
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Porter melic, Porter's melic, Porter's melicgrass |
Coast Range melic, little California melic, little California melica, smallflower melicgrass |
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Habit | Plants not or loosely cespitose, shortly rhizomatous. | Plants densely cespitose, not rhizomatous. | ||||
Culms | 55-100 cm, not forming corms; internodes smooth, basal internodes not thickened. |
35-120 cm, not forming corms; internodes scabridulous immediately above the nodes. |
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Sheaths | often scabrous on the keels, otherwise smooth; ligules 1-7 mm; blades 2-5 mm wide, both surfaces glabrous, scabridulous. |
glabrous or pilose; ligules 0.8-6.5 mm; blades 1-6 mm wide, abaxial surfaces glabrous or puberulent, adaxial surfaces with hairs. |
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Panicles | 13-25 cm; branches 1-9 cm, straight and appressed or flexible and ascending to strongly divergent, with 1-12 spikelets; pedicels sharply bent below the spikelets; disarticulation below the glumes. |
5-36 cm; branches 2.5-9 cm, appressed to reflexed, straight or flexuous, with 5-30 spikelets; pedicels not sharply bent; disarticulation above the glumes. |
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Spikelets | 8-16 mm long, 1.5-5 mm wide, parallel-sided when mature, with 2-5 bisexual florets; rachilla internodes 1.9-2.1 mm. |
3-7 mm, with 1(2) bisexual florets; rachilla internodes 0.3-0.6 mm. |
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Glumes | green, pale, or purplish-tinged; lower glumes 3.5-6 mm long, 2-3 mm wide, 3-5-veined; upper glumes 5-8 mm long, 2-3 mm wide, 5-veined; lemmas 6-10 mm, glabrous, chartaceous on the distal 1/3, 5-11-veined, veins conspicuous, apices rounded to acute, unawned; paleas about 2/3 the length of the lemmas; anthers 1-2.5 mm; rudiments 1.8-5 mm, acute to acuminate, resembling the bisexual florets. |
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Lower glumes | 2-5 mm long, 1-2 mm wide, 1-veined; upper glumes 2.5-6 mm long, 1.5-2.5 mm wide, 1-veined; lemmas 3-7 mm, glabrous, sometimes scabrous, with 7+ veins, veins prominent, apices rounded to acute, unawned; paleas almost as long as the lemmas; anthers 1.5-2.5 mm; rudiments 1-4 mm, not resembling the lower florets, longer and thicker than the terminal rachilla internode, truncate to obtuse. |
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2n | = 18. |
= 18. |
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Melica porteri |
Melica imperfecta |
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Distribution |
AZ; CO; KS; NM; TX; UT
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AZ; CA; NV
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Discussion | Melica porteri grows on rocky slopes and in open woods, often near streams. It grows from Colorado and Arizona to central Texas and northern Mexico. Living plants are sometimes confused with Bouteloua curtipendula; the similarity is superficial. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Melica imperfecta grows from sea level to 1500 m, on stable coastal dunes, dry, rocky slopes, and in open woods, from California and southern Nevada south to Baja California, Mexico. Plants vary with respect to size, panicle shape, and pubescence, but no infraspecific taxa merit recognition. Boyle (1945) obtained vigorous, almost completely sterile hybrids between M. imperfecta and both M. torreyana and M. californica, but found no examples of natural hybrids. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
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Key |
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Source | FNA vol. 24, p. 98. | FNA vol. 24, p. 90. | ||||
Parent taxa | ||||||
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Synonyms | M. imperfecta var. refracta, M. imperfecta var. minor, M. imperfecta var. flexuosa | |||||
Name authority | Scribn. | Trin. | ||||
Web links |