Nassella chilensis |
|
---|---|
Chilean needlegrass, Chilean tussockgrass |
|
Habit | Plants perennial; shortly rhizomatous, appearing cespitose, rhizomes slender, somewhat woody. |
Culms | 30-100 cm tall, 0.4-0.7 mm thick, bases somewhat bulblike, erect, geniculate and often branching intra-vaginally at the lower cauline nodes, internodes glabrous; nodes 5-8+, glabrous. |
Sheaths | mostly glabrous, throats sometimes ciliate; collars sparsely hairy, with tufts of hair at the sides, hairs 0.5-1.3 mm; ligules 0.2-0.3 mm, truncate, usually ciliate; blades 3-10 cm long, 1-1.5 mm wide, strongly convolute, stiff, abaxial surfaces glabrous, adaxial surfaces with coarse hairs. |
Panicles | 2-20 cm; branches 0.4-1.2 cm, with 1-4 spikelets; pedicels 0.5-4 mm. |
Glumes | subequal, 3-4.5 mm long, 1.1-1.6 mm wide, ovate, 3-veined, glabrous or puberulent, acuminate; florets 1.6-2.2 mm long, 0.6-0.9 mm wide, obovate to oblong, terete, widest near the top; calluses 0.2-0.3 mm, obtuse, glabrous; lemmas glabrous, smooth, lustrous, transition to the crown not evident; crowns about 0.1 mm long and wide, not differing in texture from the lemmas; awns 7-10 mm, eccentric, rapidly deciduous; anthers about 1 mm or 0.3-0.4 mm, florets with longer anthers presumably chasmogamous, those with shorter anthers presumably cleistogamous. |
Caryopses | about 1 mm. |
2n | = 42. |
Nassella chilensis |
|
Distribution |
OR |
Discussion | Nassella chilensis is an Andean species that was once collected from a ballast dump in Portland, Oregon. It is not established in the Flora region. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Source | FNA vol. 24, p. 177. |
Parent taxa | |
Sibling taxa | |
Name authority | (Trin.) E. Desv. |
Web links |