Festuca matthewsii subsp. pisamontis

Detailed description

Moderately tall short tussock with very smooth or minutely prickle-toothed fine leaf-blades, below laxly branched inflorescence of large spikelets with conspicuously awned florets. Leaf-sheath 25–70 mm, glabrous, striate, stramineous, margin membranous; apical auricles 0.4–1.3 mm, rounded, ciliate. Ligule 0.3–0.6 mm, ciliate. Leaf-blade 50–200 × 0.4–0.6 mm, hexagonal and ribbed or ± terete, pointed, undersides smooth or minutely imperceptibly antrorsely prickle-toothed on ribs, upper surface and margins abundantly short white antrorsely hairy. Culm 110–400 mm, erect, well exserted above leaf-blades; nodes visible; internodes smooth but sometimes occasionally minutely prickle-toothed. Panicle 25–130 mm with 5–9 nodes, 4–16 spikelets; branches solitary sometimes binate, lax, naked below, basal branch 12–55 mm, of 1–5 spikelets, uppermost 3–5 spikelets solitary on short pedicels; rachis prickle-toothed on margins throughout or sometimes glabrous below becoming scabrid above, branches and pedicels prickle-toothed. Spikelets 10–15 × 3–5 mm, of 5–6 florets. Glumes unequal, keeled or slightly so, prickle-teeth above, usually brown or purpled centrally, margins membranous, ciliate; lower 2.8-4.0 mm, 1-nerved, long triangular acute or blunt, upper 3.5–5.5 mm, 3-nerved, narrowly ovate, obtuse to acute. Lemma 3.7–6.2 mm, lobes 0.1 mm, rounded, glabrous except for prickle-teeth at apex and near awn, glaucous; awn 1.2–2.5 mm. Palea 4.5–6.8 mm, often = lemma, acute, deeply bifid, keels toothed in upper ½–⅔, interkeel hairs above, margins of flanks ciliate above. Callus 0.2–0.3 mm, margin very sparsely shortly bearded; articulation flat. Rachilla 1.0–1.5 mm, short stiff antrorsely hairy. Lodicules 0.8–1.2 mm, lobed, usually hair-tipped. Anthers 2.8–3.7 mm, yellow. Ovary 0.6–0.9 mm, obovate, apex usually with hispid hairs; stigma-styles 1.2–1.3 mm. Seed 3 mm.