No. 91. 

 FESTUCA MICROSTACHYS Nutt. PI. Gamb. 187 (1848). 



Plant annual or biennial, tufted, sometimes with a rather weak rootstock. 



Culms erect or spreading, often geniculate at the lower nodes, smooth, slender, 10 

 to 20 inches tall. 



Leaves of the culm usually 3; sheaths smooth or pubescent, close, half open at 

 the throat, usually shorter than the rather short lower nodes ; blades involute, narrow, 

 2 or 3 inches long ; ligule wider than the blade, but very short. 



Inflorescence simple and racemose or usually branched, especially below, secund 

 by the twisting of the angular axis which is 2 to 5 inches long; rays single, spreading 

 or sometimes deflexed, channeled above, crowded to the base on the lower side with 

 spikelets on short, clavate pedicels. 



Spikelets 3- to G-flowered, 3£ to 5 lines long; empty glumes narrowly ate, acute, 

 smooth or rarely thinly pubescent, the first 1 -nerved, 2 to 2£ lines long, th^ second 3- 

 nerved and J to 1 line longer than the first, more than half the length of the adjacent 

 floret; floral glume lance-ovate, acute, roughly pubescent or nearly smooth, obscurely 

 5-nerved, about 3 lines long, terminating in a hispid awn, 3 to 5 lines Jon & ; palet 

 lance-oblong, with hispid keels terminating in two setose teeth which project nearly a 

 lme beyond the glume at maturity; stamens seldom more than one fully d^ ^oped 

 and this with a small anther not exserted; grain spindle-shaped, channeled on one 

 side, dark purple, 2£ lines long, falling with the adherent glume and palet; internode 

 of rachilla ^ line long, readily disarticulating between the florets, the upper joint 

 bearing a small rudiment. 



Plate XCI; 1 and 2, ordinary forms of the species; 3, dwarf form; a, spikelet; 

 6, floret, ventral view; c, floral glume unrolled, dorsal view; d, palet; e and/, spikelet 

 and enlarged view of floral glume of dwarf form. 



Southern California to Washington and eastward to Arizona and Utah. Very 

 variable, especially in the inflorescence and pubescence. 



