New! - Search other data sources for Festuca airoides

Help - Wrong Description?

Kew Data Sources

Kew's Herbarium Catalogue
ePIC - Electronic Plant Information Centre

External Data Sources

Note - this takes you off of our website
Use your browser's back button to return to this page

GrassBase - The Online World Grass Flora

Descriptions

W.D. Clayton, M. Vorontsova, K.T. Harman & H. Williamson

© Copyright The Board of Trustees, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.

Festuca airoides

HABIT Perennial; caespitose. Basal innovations intravaginal. Culms erect; 10–30 cm long. Leaf-sheaths tubular for much of their length; with 0.25–0.33 of their length closed; with flat margins; glabrous on surface, or puberulous. Ligule an eciliate membrane; 0.5 mm long. Leaf-blades curved; filiform; conduplicate; 0.5–0.7 mm wide. Leaf-blade venation comprising (5–)7 vascular bundles; with 1(–3) inner ridges; with sclerenchyma strands widened to form a discontinuous subepidermal layer, or with continuous uniform subepidermal sclerenchyma layer on the underside. Leaf-blade surface scabrous.

INFLORESCENCE Inflorescence a panicle. Peduncle glabrous, or pubescent above.

Panicle open; dense; 2.5–5 cm long. Panicle branches scabrous.

Spikelets solitary. Fertile spikelets pedicelled.

FERTILE SPIKELETS Spikelets comprising 3–5 fertile florets; with diminished florets at the apex. Spikelets elliptic, or oblong; laterally compressed; 6–7 mm long; breaking up at maturity; disarticulating below each fertile floret.

GLUMES Glumes persistent; dissimilar; shorter than spikelet. Lower glume lanceolate; 0.7–0.8 length of upper glume; chartaceous; without keels; 1 -veined. Lower glume lateral veins absent. Lower glume apex acute. Upper glume lanceolate, or ovate; 2.7–3.4 mm long; 0.7–0.8 length of adjacent fertile lemma; chartaceous; without keels; 3 -veined. Upper glume apex acuminate.

FLORETS Fertile lemma lanceolate; 3.3–4.3 mm long; chartaceous; glaucous; without keel; 5 -veined. Lemma apex acuminate; awned; 1 -awned. Principal lemma awn 1.5–2 mm long overall; 0.4 length of lemma. Palea 1 length of lemma; 2 -veined. Palea keels scaberulous. Apical sterile florets resembling fertile though underdeveloped.

FLOWER Lodicules 2. Anthers 3. Ovary glabrous.

FRUIT Caryopsis with adherent pericarp. Hilum linear.

DISTRIBUTION Europe: central, southwestern, southeastern, and eastern. Asia-temperate: western Asia.

NOTES Poeae. Fl Turk 1993.

Please cite this publication as detailed in How to Cite Version: 3rd February 2016.