Angiosperms (Flowering Plants) • Earth.com

Eared Fescue

(Festuca auriculata)

galery
en

Description

Sheaths glabrous or glabrescent or with trichomes, conspicuous at the base of the plant, persisting for more than 1 year, remaining entire, not conspicuously splitting between the veins, closed more than half their length (approximately half). Collars glabrous. Auricles represented by distinct, erect, swellings. Auricular cilia absent (if sheaths are hairy, the auricles positions are also hairy). Ligules 0.2-0.5 mm long, ciliate. Leaf blades 1-6 cm long, erect, stiffish (sometimes recurved). Adaxial blade surfaces with trichomes, abaxial blade surfaces glabrous or with trichomes. Leaf blades plicate; 0.3-0.45 mm wide, 0.5-0.65 mm deep. Veins 5. Adaxial to abaxial sclerenchyma strands absent. Abaxial sclerenchyma poorly developed (occurring at midvein and leaf margins only), in discrete, relatively narrow strands opposite the veins. Ribs 1 (well defined, 0-4 variously defined). Uppermost culm leaf sheaths not inflated. Flag leaf blades 0.1-1.5 cm long (conspicuously variable). Culm nodes becoming exposed (rarely) or never exposed; internodes glabrous, or scabrous-hirsute (sparsely scabrous, if applicable).

Taxonomic tree:

Domain:
Kingdom: Plantae
Phylum: Magnoliophyta
Class: Liliopsida
Order:Poales
Family:Poaceae
Genus:Festuca
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