Angiosperms (Flowering Plants) • Earth.com

Earle'S Fescue

(Festuca earlei)

galery
en

Description

Habit. Plants yellowish green, 15-45 cm high, not densely tufted (tufts looser than those of F. minutiflora), tiller bases not stiffly erect, bases purplish or not purplish (usually), horizontal rooting stems absent. Vegetative shoots arising outside, or breaking through the base of existing sheaths. Vegetative morphology. Sheaths glabrous, not conspicuous at the base of the plant, splitting between the veins (fibrillose and reddish brown, similar to F. rubra but without retrorse trichomes), open more than half their length (approximately, but splitting early; among the sheaths occur fragile prophylls 1.5-2.5 cm long with trichomes on the veins and elsewhere scaberulous). Collars glabrous. Auricles represented by distinct, erect, swellings (that are more or less prominent). Auricular cilia absent. Ligules 0.1-1 mm long (higher on the sides at the auricles), ciliate. Leaf blades 6-12 cm long, erect, stiffish or more or less lax. Adaxial blade surfaces with trichomes (sparse), abaxial blade surfaces glabrous. Leaf blades flat or plicate (flag leaves often flat), 1-3 mm wide; 0.2-0.43-0.6 mm wide, 0.5-0.7-0.85 mm deep. Veins 5. Adaxial to abaxial sclerenchyma strands absent. Abaxial sclerenchyma poorly developed, in discrete, relatively narrow strands opposite the veins. Ribs 1 (well defined, 2-4 usually well defined). Uppermost culm leaf sheaths not inflated. Flag leaf blades 2-8 cm long. Culm nodes becoming exposed, 1; internodes glabrous.

Taxonomic tree:

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