Piptochaetium pringlei |
Poaceae subfam. pooideae |
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Pringle needlegrass, Pringle speargrass, Pringle's spear grass |
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Habit | Plants annual or perennial; sometimes matlike, sometimes cespitose, sometimes stoloniferous, sometimes rhizomatous. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Culms | 50-125 cm, mostly glabrous, pubescent below the nodes; nodes 2-3, dark, 1 glabrous or slightly pubescent. |
usually hollow, sometimes solid. |
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Sheaths | smooth to scabridulous; ligules of basal leaves 0.5-2.8 mm, truncate to rounded, of upper leaves 1-3.5 mm, rounded to acute; blades 10-30 cm long, 1-3.5 mm wide, 3-5-veined, abaxial surfaces glabrous, smooth, adaxial surfaces smooth or scabrous over the veins, margins smooth or scabrous. |
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Leaves | distichous; sheaths usually open to the base, varying to closed for nearly their full length; auricles present or absent; abaxial ligules absent; adaxial ligules scarious or membranous, sometimes puberulent or scabridulous, usually not ciliate, cilia sometimes shorter than the base; pseudopetioles rarely present; blades usually linear, sometimes broadly so, venation parallel; cross sections non-Kranz, mesophyll nonradiate, adaxial palisade layer absent, fusoid and arm cells usually absent; midribs usually simple; adaxial bulliform cells present; stomates with parallel-sided subsidiary cells; epidermes usually lacking bicellular microhairs, sometimes with unicellular microhairs, papillae usually absent, when present, rarely more than 1 per cell. |
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Panicles | 6-20 cm, open, with 10-25 spikelets; branches ascending, flexuous; pedicels to 1 mm, flattened, hispid. |
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Inflorescences | usually terminal, panicles, spikes, or racemes, usually ebracteate; disarticulation usually below the florets, sometimes below the glumes, at the rachis nodes, or at the inflorescence bases. |
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Spikelets | usually bisexual, infrequently unisexual or mixed, usually laterally compressed or not compressed, occasionally dorsally compressed, with 1-30 sexual florets, distal floret(s) often reduced, infrequently spikelets with 1-2 reduced or staminate basal florets and a single terminal sexual floret. |
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Glumes | subequal, 9-12 mm long, 2.5-3.5 mm wide; lower glumes 5-7-veined; upper glumes 7-veined; florets 6.5-10 mm long, 1.5-2.1 mm thick, terete to somewhat laterally compressed; calluses 0.6-1.9 mm, blunt to acute, strigose; lemmas golden brown to dark brown at maturity, shiny or not, smooth to spiny-tuberculate distally or for almost their entire length, pubescent, hairs tawny to golden brown, evenly distributed or somewhat more abundant on the basal 1/2, apices tapering to the crown; crowns 0.5-0.6 mm, inconspicuous, straight, hairy, hairs 0.5-1 mm; awns 19-27(35) mm, persistent, twice-geniculate, sometimes inconspicuously so; paleas 6.3-9.5 mm; lodicules 2, 1-1.5 mm, acute; anthers 3.5-5.5 mm, sometimes penicillate. |
usually 2, upper or lower glumes sometimes absent, rarely both glumes absent; lemmas without uncinate hairs, awned or not, awns single, basal to apical; paleas usually well-developed, sometimes reduced or absent; lodicules 2(3), usually lanceolate and broadly membranous distally, rarely truncate and fleshy, usually not veined or obscurely veined, sometimes distinctly veined, sometimes ciliate; anthers (1, 2)3; ovaries glabrous or sometimes hairy distally, sometimes with an apical appendage; haustorial synergids absent; styles (1)2 (-4), bases close together, sometimes fused. |
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Caryopses | about 7 mm, fusiform. |
hila linear, elliptic, ovate, or punctate; endosperm usually hard, sometimes soft or liquid, with or without lipids, starch grains compound or simple; embryos less than 1/2 the length of the caryopses; epiblasts usually present; scutellar cleft usually absent; mesocotyl internode usually absent; embryonic leaf margins overlapping, x = 7, 10. |
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2n | = 42. |
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Piptochaetium pringlei |
Poaceae subfam. pooideae |
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Distribution |
AZ; NM; TX
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Discussion | Piptochaetium pringlei grows in oak woodlands, often on rocky soils, in the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico. It is often confused with P. fimbriatum; it differs from that species in having longer florets and sharper calluses. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
The subfamily Pooideae includes approximately 3300 species, making it the largest subfamily in the Poaceae. It reaches its greatest diversity in cool temperate and boreal regions, extending across the tropics only in high mountains. The circumscription and relationships of tribes within the Pooideae are unsettled (see, for example, Catalan et al. 1997, 2004; Soreng and Davis 1998). In this flora, some previously recognized tribes have been combined with the Poeae. Recognition of some of these as subtribes is well supported; among these is the Hainardieae Greuter (which, at the subtribal level, is called the Parapholiinae Caro). Members of other traditional tribal groupings, such as the Aveneae Dumort., appear to be widely dispersed within the Poeae sensu lato. Further work will probably support the division of the expanded Poeae into additional tribes; there is as yet no clear indication as to what the boundaries of such tribes should be. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
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Key |
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Source | FNA vol. 24, p. 162. | FNA vol. 24, p. 57. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Parent taxa | Poaceae > subfam. Pooideae > tribe Stipeae > Piptochaetium | Poaceae | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Sibling taxa | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Synonyms | Stipa pringlei | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Name authority | (Beal) Parodi | Benth. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Web links |