Rocky Mountain Fescue

Description

Festuca saximontana, the rocky mountain fescue or the mountain fescue, is a perennial grass native to North America. The specific epithet saximontana is Latin and means "of the Rocky Mountains". The grass has a diploid number of 42. Festuca saximontana is a bluish-grey to green densely tufted grass that lacks rhizomes. The grass has smooth, glabrous, occasionally scabrous culms growing 7–70 cm (2.8–27.6 in) tall. The culms sometimes become puberulent below the inflorescence. The glabrous and smooth or scabrous leaf sheaths are closed for half of their length and occasionally become shredded. Dead leaf sheaths persist at the base of the grass. The erose ligules measure 0.1–0.5 mm (0.0039–0.0197 in). The conduplicate leaf blades are 0.5–1.2 mm (0.020–0.047 in) in diameter, with glabrous abaxial surfaces and scabrous adaxial surfaces. The abaxial sclerenchyma is composed of three to seven strands that form a continuous band and the adaxial sclerenchyma is absent. The flag leaf blades are 0.5–4 cm (0.20–1.57 in) long. The panicles are mostly linear-cylindrical and occasionally loosely lanceolate, measuring 2–10 cm (0.79–3.94 in) long. One or two erect branches rise from each node of the inflorescence and become nodding during anthesis, measuring 0.5–3 cm (0.20–1.18 in) long. The greenish spikelets are loosely flowered with three to five florets and measure 4.5–8.8 mm (0.18–0.35 in). The coriaceous glumes are lance-subulate and become scabrous at their distal end. The lower glumes measure 1.5–3.5 mm (0.059–0.138 in) and have one vein, and the upper glumes measure 2.5–4.8 mm (0.098–0.189 in) and have three veins. The coriaceous lemmas are strongly curved, the longer of which measure 3–5 mm (0.12–0.20 in) long. The awns measure 1–2 mm (0.039–0.079 in). The paleas are 3–5 mm (0.12–0.20 in) long. The anthers are 1.2–1.7 mm (0.047–0.067 in) long. Festuca saximontana grows in dry or mesic grasslands, woodlands, and sand dunes throughout boreal, mountainous, and subalpine North America. It grows at altitudes below 3,600 m (11,800 ft).