MANUAL OF THE GRASSES OF THE UNITED STATES 



land and Labrador to Alaska, south 

 to the White Mountains of New 

 Hampshire; Colorado and California; 

 northern Eurasia. 



5. Deschampsia flexuosa (L.) Trin. 

 Crinkled hairgrass. (Fig. 400.) 

 Culms densely tufted, erect, slender, 

 30 to 80 cm. tall; leaves mostly in 

 a basal tuft, numerous, the sheaths 

 scabrous, the blades involute, slender 

 or setaceous, flexuous; panicle loose, 

 open, nodding, 5 to 12 cm. long, the 

 capillary branches naked below, the 

 branchlets spikelet-bearing toward the 

 ends; spikelets 4 to 5 mm. long, 

 purplish or bronze, the florets approxi- 

 mate; glumes 1-nerved, acute, shorter 

 than the florets; lemmas scabrous, 

 the callus hairs about 1 mm. long, 

 the awn attached near the base, 

 geniculate, twisted, 5 to 7 mm. long. 

 % — Dry or rocky woods, slopes, 

 and open ground, Greenland to 

 Alaska, south to Georgia, Michigan, 

 and Wisconsin; Arkansas and Okla- 

 homa (Le Flore County); Mexico; 

 Eurasia. A form with yellow-striped 

 foliage (called by gardeners Air a 

 foliis variegatis) is occasionally grown 

 for ornament. 



6. Deschampsia caespitosa (L.) 

 Beauv. Tufted hairgrass. (Fig. 

 401.) Culms in dense tufts, leafy at 

 base, erect, 60 to 120 cm. tall; sheaths 

 smooth; blades 1.5 to 4 mm. wide, 

 often elongate, rather firm, flat or 

 folded, scabrous above; panicle loose, 

 open, nodding, 10 to 25 cm. long, 

 the capillary scabrous branches and 

 branchlets spikelet-bearing toward 

 the ends; spikelets 4 to 5 mm. long, 

 pale or purple-tinged, the florets dis- 

 tant, the rachilla internode half the 

 length of the lower floret; glumes 1- 

 nerved or the second obscurely 3- 

 nerved, acute, about as long as the 

 florets; lemmas smooth, the callus 

 hairs short; awn from near the base, 

 from straight and included in the 

 glumes to weakly geniculate and 

 twice as long as the spikelet. % — 

 Bogs and wet places, Greenland to 

 Alaska, south to New Jersey, West 



295 



Figure 400. — Deschampsia flexuosa. Panicle, X 1; 

 glumes and floret, X 10. (Hitchcock 16059, N. H.) 



Virginia, North Carolina, Illinois, 

 North Dakota, New Mexico, and 

 California; Arctic and temperate re- 

 gions of the Old World. Variable in 

 size, in width and texture of blades, 

 in shape of the panicle, and in length 

 of awn. The forms which have been 

 segregated as species and varieties are 

 inconstant, and the characters used to 

 distinguish them are not correlated. 

 Rarely with proliferous spikelets. 

 Large plants from Oregon and Cali- 

 fornia have been described under 

 Deschampsia caespitosa subsp. ber- 

 ingensis (Hulten) Lawr., but are not 

 D. beringensis Hulten, of the Aleu- 

 tians. Tall plants, with long flat 

 blades, elongate panicles, and spike- 

 lets, 3 to 4 mm. long, found in Con- 

 necticut, have been referred to D. 

 caespitosa var. parviflora (Thuill.) 

 Coss. and Germ. They agree with 



