Festuca coelestis (St.-Yves) V. I. Krecz. & Bobrov

3000-4500m.

Culms 4–10(–12) cm tall. Leaf sheaths smooth; leaf blades rigid, 1.5–6(–10) cm, smooth, glabrous; vascular bundles 5. Panicle 1–5 cm. Spikelets 5–6 mm, green tinged purple or brownish purple; florets 3–6; glumes with margins usually ciliolate or lower glume only ciliolate on abaxial margin; lower glume narrowly lanceolate; upper glume broadly lanceolate or obovate; lemmas 3.2–4 mm, usually scabrid on upper back; awns 1–2 mm. Anthers 1–1.4 mm. Fl. and fr. May–Sep.

Tufted perennial without rhizomes; culms 3-30cm high, erect, slender. Leaf-blades folded-setaceous, up to 13cm long, smooth on the lower (outer) surface, glaucous, with 3 sclerenchyma strands, 1 on the keel and 1 along each margin, 5-nerved, rarely 7-nerved, but then the additional nerves (the outermost pair) much smaller than the innermost pair; ligule a narrow rim 0.4-0.6mm long. Panicle narrowly oblong, 1-5cm long, the branches ascending, ± appressed to the main axis, scabrid. Spikelets 3-4-flowered, 5-6mm long (excluding the awns); lower glume 1.8-2.2mm long, 1-nerved; upper glume 2.6-3.2mm long, 3-nerved; lemmas oblong-elliptic in side-view, 3.2-4mm long, scabrid towards the tip, with an awn 1-2mm long; palea-keels scabrid or sometimes smooth below; anthers 1-1.2mm long; ovary glabrous.

Gansu, Hubei, Nei Mongol, Qinghai, Sichuan, Xinjiang, Xizang, Yunnan [Kashmir, E Kazakhstan (Tarbagatai Mountains), Kyrgyzstan, N Pakistan, Tajikistan].

Distribution: Pakistan (N.W.F.P., Gilgit & Kashmir); southern USSR (Central Asia).

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

Forest margins, under shrubs, grassy mountain slopes, alpine meadows, floodlands; 2500–5300 m.

Festuca ovina Linnaeus subsp. coelestis St.-Yves, Candollea 3: 376. 1928.