Festuca matthewsii subsp. matthewsii

Features

Smooth soft to stiff green or glaucous tufted or occasionally shortly stoloniferous tussock with long wide-angled inflorescences of evidently awned florets held high above hexagonal leaf-blades from swollen collars. Branching intravaginal. Leaf-sheath 30-110 mm, glabrous, keeled centrally, ridged elsewhere, much wider than leaf-blade, stramineous, margins becoming membranous; apical auricles 0.6-1.5 mm, rounded, shortly ciliate. Ligule as for auricles. Collar conspicuously thickened. Leaf-blade 100.0-300.0 × 0.5-0.8 mm, mostly hexagonal, ribbed, undersides glabrous except for scabrid tip rarely minutely scabrid elsewhere, upper surface and margins abundantly covered in short, white hairs. Culm 0.25-1.0 m, usually » leaves, nodes black, lowermost often geniculate, internodes smooth, often slightly scabrid below inflorescence node. Panicle rather open, 70-200 mm, with 5-10 nodes, of 15-50 spikelets, branches pulvinata, flexible and widely divergent sometimes contracted, basal branches 20-100 mm solitary or occasionally binate, with 3-5 spikelets, naked below, branches becoming progressively shorter and uppermost 3-4 spikelets solitary on short pedicels; rachis, branches and pedicels prickle-toothed to sparsely so becoming smooth or almost so. Spikelets 9-20 × 3-5 mm wide, stramineous or sometimes bronze or slightly purpled, of 4-8 florets. Glumes unequal, keeled, centrally green to stramineous occasionally with purpled veins, triangular acute to obtuse, apex ciliate; lower 3-6 mm, l-nerved, upper 3.5-8.0 mm, 3-5-nerved. Lemma 5-9 mm, lobes 0 or very small, rounded on back becoming keeled above, prickle-teeth below on outer nerve and on margin, and above near awn; awn 1-4 mm. Palea 4.5-9.0 mm, frequently < lemma, long acute, deeply bifid, keels prickle-toothed to base or almost so, interkeel hairs mostly in upper 1/3, margins of flanks ciliate above sometimes to base. Callus 0.2-0.4 mm, centrally glabrous very shortly bearded laterally; articulation oblique to ± flat. Rachilla 1.0-1.6 mm, short stiff hairy. Lodicules 0.6-1.5 mm, greater than or equal to ovary, often lobed, frequently hair-tipped. Anthers 2-4 mm, yellow or yellow-purpled. Ovary 0.6-1.0 mm, hispid hairs at apex; stigma-styles 1.5-2.5 mm. Seed 3-4 mm.