Festuca matthewsii subsp. matthewsii

Detailed description

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 100–300 × 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, 1-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 ⅓, 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, ≥ 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.