Dog Fescue

3100-4700m.

Plant densely tufted; shoots intravaginal or extravaginal. Culms 15–60 cm tall, nodes 1–2. Leaf sheaths smooth, glabrous, margins membranous; auricles present as erect swellings or absent; leaf blades conduplicate, 10–20 cm × ca. 0.5 mm, both surfaces scabrid. Panicle loose, open at flowering, 6–10 cm; branches 2–5 cm, inserted singly. Spikelets 8.5–11 mm, greenish or purplish brown; florets 3–6; glumes smooth or scabrid, margins thinly membranous or ciliolate, apex acute; lower glume lanceolate, 2–2.5 mm; upper glume lanceolate-ovate, 3–4.5 mm; rachilla internodes 1.8–2.2 mm, pubescent; lemmas 5.1–6.5 mm, scabrid on upper back, rarely pubescent laterally at base; awns 2–3.5 mm; palea keels scabrid, pubescent between keels. Anthers 1.5–2.5 mm. Ovary apex densely hairy. Fl. and fr. Jul.

Tufted perennial without rhizomes; culms (13-)25-80cm high, erect or geniculately ascending, slender. Leaf-blades folded-setaceous, up to 25cm long, scabrid on the lower (outer) surface, glaucous, with 7 sclerenchyma strands, 1 on the keel, 1 along each margin and 1 below each of the lateral nerves, 6-sided in section (this visible in a handlens without the need to cut sections); ligule a narrow rim c. 0.5mm long. Panicle narrowly lanceolate to ovate, 6-15cm long, lax, the branches ascending or spreading, scabrid. Spikelets 4-6(-7)-flowered, (8-)10-13 mm long (excluding the awns); lower glume 2.7-4.4mm long, 1 nerved, upper glume 4-5.3mm long, 3-nerved; lemmas narrowly elliptic in side-view, 5.5-7 mm long, scabrid above, with an awn 1.5-3mm long, palea scabrid along the keels; anthers 2.5-4mm long; ovary hairy at the tip.

Xizang [NW India, Kashmir].

Distribution: Pakistan (N.W.F.P. & Kashmir); Northwest India and China (Dzhungaria).

Fl. & Fr. Per.: July-September.

Grassy places on sunny slopes; ca. 4600 m.

Festuca rubra Linnaeus subsp. kashmiriana (Stapf) St.-Yves.