Pleuropogon hooverianus |
Pleuropogon |
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Hoover's semaphoregrass, north coast semaphore grass |
pleuropogon, semaphore grass |
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Habit | Plants perennial; not cespitose, rhizomatous. | Plants annual or perennial; cespitose or rhizomatous. | ||||||||||||||||
Culms | 1-1.6 m, erect. |
5-160 cm, erect or geniculate at the base, glabrous; basal branching extravaginal. |
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Sheaths | glabrous, retrorsely scabridulous; ligules 3-6.5 mm; blades 3-30 cm long, 4-10 mm wide, apices acute to acuminate, mucronate, flag leaves often with reduced spinose blades. |
closed almost to the top; ligules membranous; blades flat to folded, adaxial surfaces with prominent midribs. |
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Racemes | 21-33 cm, with 7-10 spikelets; internodes 1.8-8 cm; pedicels 1.5-5 mm, erect or ascending, rarely reflexed. |
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Inflorescences | terminal, racemes, rarely panicles. |
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Spikelets | 28-42 mm, erect or ascending, with 9-16 florets, usually all but the terminal floret bisexual. |
laterally compressed, with 5-20(30) florets, upper florets reduced; disarticulation above the glumes and beneath the florets. |
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Glumes | unequal to subequal, shorter than the adjacent lemmas, membranous to subhyaline, margins scarious; lower glumes 1-veined; upper glumes 1-3-veined; rachilla internodes in some species swollen and glandular basally, the glandular portion turning whitish when dry; calluses rounded, glabrous; lemmas thick, herbaceous to membranous, 7(9)-veined, veins parallel, margins scarious, apices scarious, entire or emarginate, midvein sometimes extended into an awn, awns straight; paleas subequal to the lemmas, 2-veined, keeled over each vein, keels winged, with 1 or 2 awns or a flat triangular appendage; lodicules 2, completely fused; anthers 3, opening by pores; ovaries glabrous, x = 8, 9, 10. |
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Caryopses | 3.5-4 mm. |
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Lower | glumes 3-5.6 mm; upper glumes 4.5-7.2 mm, 1-3-veined; rachilla internodes 2-3 mm long, about 0.4 mm thick, basal 1/2 developing into a glandular swelling; lemmas 8-9 mm, 7-veined, lateral veins strongly ribbed, apices toothed, usually rounded, rarely acute or erose, awned, awns 0.2-4 mm; paleal keels unawned, each with a 0.6-1.5 mm triangular appendage; anthers 4-4.8 mm. |
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2n | =16, 36. |
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Pleuropogon hooverianus |
Pleuropogon |
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Distribution |
CA
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AK; CA; OR; WA; BC; NF; NU; ON; QC; Greenland |
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Discussion | Pleuropogon hooverianus grows in wet and marshy areas, usually in shady locations. Several of the populations are around redwood groves. It is known only from Mendocino, Sonoma, and Marin counties in California. It is listed as rare by the state of California. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Pleuropogon is a genus of five hydrophilous species, one circumboreal in the arctic, the other four restricted to the Pacific coast of North America, extending from southern British Columbia to central California. The Pacific coast species are sometimes treated as a separate genus, Lophochlaena Nees, but are here regarded as constituting a subgenus of Pleuropogon. The flat, triangular paleal appendages differ from bristly or flattened awns in being wider at the base, and smooth rather than scabrous. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
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Key |
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Source | FNA vol. 24. | FNA vol. 24, p. 103. | ||||||||||||||||
Parent taxa | Poaceae > subfam. Pooideae > tribe Meliceae > Pleuropogon | Poaceae > subfam. Pooideae > tribe Meliceae | ||||||||||||||||
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Name authority | (L.D. Benson) J.T. Howell | R. Br. | ||||||||||||||||
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