Muhlenbergia tenuifolia |
|
---|---|
mesa muhly, slender muhly |
|
Habit | Plants annual or short-lived perennials; cespitose, not rhizomatous. |
Culms | 20-70 cm, erect or decumbent; internodes mostly scabridulous or smooth, always scabridulous below the nodes. |
Sheaths | usually shorter than the internodes, glabrous, smooth or scabridulous, usually without necrotic spots, not becoming spirally coiled when old; ligules 1.2-3(5) mm, membranous throughout, acute, often lacerate; blades 2-13 cm long, 1.2-2.5 mm wide, flat or loosely involute, scabridulous or glabrous abaxially, scabrous adaxially, usually without necrotic spots. |
Panicles | numerous, terminal and axillary, 7-20 cm long, 0.3-1.4(3) cm wide, contracted, often lax, nodding, interrupted below; primary branches 3.5-7.5 cm, ascending or diverging up to 70° from the rachises, spikelet-bearing to the base; pedicels 1-3 mm, antrorsely scabrous; disarticulation above the glumes. |
Spikelets | 2-4 mm, often purplish, borne singly. |
Glumes | 1.2-2.8 mm, shorter than the florets, 1-veined, veins scabrous, apices often erose, unawned or awned, awns to 0.5 mm; lower glumes 1.2-2 mm, acute to acuminate; upper glumes 1.5-2.8 mm, acute; lemmas 2-3.5(4) mm, lanceolate, mostly smooth, scabridulous distally, pubescent on the calluses, lower 1/2 of the midveins, and margins, hairs 0.5-1.5 mm, apices acuminate to acute, awned, awns 10-30 mm, scabrous, sinuous to flexuous; paleas 1.8-3.4(3.8) mm, lanceolate, sparsely villous basally, apices acuminate to acute; anthers 0.9-1.5 mm, yellowish. |
Caryopses | 1-2.2 mm, narrowly fusiform, brownish. |
Cleistogamous | panicles not present. |
2n | = 20, 40. |
Muhlenbergia tenuifolia |
|
Distribution |
AZ; NM; TX
|
Discussion | Muhlenbergia tenuifolia grows in gramma grasslands and pine-oak woodlands on rocky slopes, limestone rock outcrops, gravelly roadsides, and in sandy drainages, at elevations of 1200-2200 m. Its range extends through Mexico to northern South America. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Source | FNA vol. 25, p. 162. |
Parent taxa | Poaceae > subfam. Chloridoideae > tribe Cynodonteae > Muhlenbergia |
Sibling taxa | |
Synonyms | M. monticola |
Name authority | (Kunth) Trin. |
Web links |