Festuca baetica

Description

The genus Festuca represents a major evolutionary line of the tribe Poeae. The ancient group has produced various segregates that possess more advanced characteristics than Festuca, including racemose inflorescences and more annual habits. The word "festuca" is a Latin word meaning "stem" or "stalk" first used by Pliny the Elder to describe a weed. The word Festuca first appears to describe grasses in Dodoens' "Stirpium historiae pemptades sex, sive libri XXX" in 1583. However, the plant Dodoens described as Festuca altera is truly Bromus secalinus. Other authors before Linnaeus used the name to describe other various species of Bromus. In the first edition of "Genera Plantarum", Linnaeus describes seven species of Festuca, five of which are truly Bromus grasses with the other two being Festuca gigantea and Festuca pratensis. In 1753 the genus is accepted as first being formally described, in Linnaeus' "Species Plantarum". Eleven species were described, with F. ovina being the type species. Of these eleven, one species was Danthonia, one Poa, and one Koeleria. The first major monograph on the genus was Hackel's "Monographia Festucarum Europaearum" in 1882. Since Linnaeus' publications, seven genera have been proposed for groups of perennial fescues and fifteen for annual fescues, all with varying degrees of acceptance. For example, in 1906 the subgenus Vulpia was introduced for North American species. The annual habit and shorter anthers of Vulpia has since been enough to distinguish Vulpia as a separate genus from Festuca