| # Festuca of North America |

S.G. Aiken, M.J. Dallwitz, C.L. McJannet, and L.L. Consaul

### Festuca rubra var. trichophylla Ducros ex Gaud.

TRICHOPHYLLA, an introduced, slender creeping, cultivar of red fescue.

Fl. Helv. 1: 288. 1828. F. trichophylla (Ducros ex Gaud.) K. Richter, Pl. Eur. 1: 100. 1890.

Treated as a distinct species (Markgraf-Dannenberg 1980). The following information was obtained from that source.

Habit. Plants deep green, 40–70 cm high, not densely tufted (laxly caespitose), tiller bases not stiffly erect, bases purplish (reddish), horizontal rooting stems present. Vegetative shoots arising outside, or breaking through the base of existing sheaths.

Vegetative morphology. Sheaths glabrous (pinkish), not conspicuous at the base of the plant, splitting between the veins, closed more than half their length. Leaf blades plicate; 0.3–0.5(–0.6) mm deep (scabrid above, more or less hairy, subacute). Abaxial sclerenchyma well developed (rather stout, subequal, rarely confluent). Ribs not very prominent.

Floral morphology. Inflorescence paniculate (rather lax but narrow, branches very slender), 6–10 cm long. Spikelets 7–8.6 mm wide (green). Second glume 4.9–5.4 mm long (1.6–2 mm wide, oblong lanceolate, accuminate). Lemma 3.4–4.3 mm long (0.8–1.2 mm wide, linear-lanceolate, glabrous, often dark below the apex); apex entire. Lemma awn present (usually very short).

Cytology. 2n = 42.

Habitat and distribution. Introduced; meadows.

Notes. Plants have been grown under this name as an experimental cultivar at Beaverlodge, Alberta (N. Fairey, personal cummunication 1995).

We advise against extracting comparative information from the descriptions. This is much more easily achieved using the DELTA data files or the interactive key, which allows access to the character list, illustrations with detailed captions, full and partial descriptions, diagnostic descriptions, differences and similarities between taxa, lists of taxa exhibiting or lacking specified attributes, and distributions of character states within any set of taxa. See also Guidelines for using data taken from Web publications.

Cite this publication as: ‘Aiken, S.G., Dallwitz, M.J., McJannet, C.L. and Consaul, L.L. 1996 onwards. Festuca of North America: descriptions, illustrations, identification, and information retrieval. Version: 14th February 2019. delta-intkey.com’. Aiken, Dallwitz, McJannet, and Consaul (1997) should also be cited (see References).

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