Austrofestuca sens. lat.
From australinus (southern) and Festuca.
Including Schedonorus Beauv.
Habit, vegetative morphology. Perennial; rhizomatous and caespitose. Culms 30–80 cm high; herbaceous; unbranched above. Culm nodes exposed, or hidden by leaf sheaths; glabrous. Culm internodes hollow. Plants unarmed. Young shoots intravaginal. Leaves mostly basal; auriculate (occasionally, slightly), or non-auriculate. Sheaths terete, not splitting longitudinally into fibres. Leaf blades linear; narrow (cylindrical); 0.6–6.8 mm wide (8–50 cm long); involute, subulate, rigid; without cross venation; persistent; rolled in bud, or once-folded in bud; an unfringed membrane; truncate, or not truncate; 0.8–2.1 mm long (basal leaves), or 3.8–5.5 mm long (culm leaves). Contra-ligule absent.
Reproductive organization. Plants bisexual, with bisexual spikelets; with hermaphrodite florets.
Inflorescence. Inflorescence paniculate; open, or contracted; spicate. Primary inflorescence branches inserted all around the main axis. Inflorescence espatheate; not comprising ‘partial inflorescences’ and foliar organs. Spikelet-bearing axes persistent. Spikelets not secund; pedicellate.
Female-fertile spikelets. Spikelets 6.8–17 mm long; compressed laterally; disarticulating above the glumes; disarticulating between the florets. Rachilla prolonged beyond the uppermost female-fertile floret; hairy; the rachilla extension with incomplete florets, or naked. Hairy callus present, or absent. Callus short; blunt (truncate, glabrous, scabrous or villous).
Glumes two; more or less equal; shorter than the spikelets to about equalling the spikelets; shorter than the adjacent lemmas, or long relative to the adjacent lemmas; hairless; pointed; awnless; carinate; similar (membranous to chartaceous). Lower glume 1 nerved, or 3 nerved, or 5 nerved (only at the base). Upper glume 3 nerved, or 5 nerved (only at the base). Spikelets with incomplete florets. The incomplete florets distal to the female-fertile florets. The distal incomplete florets merely underdeveloped.
Female-fertile florets 3–5. Lemmas similar in texture to the glumes to decidedly firmer than the glumes (membranous to leathery); not becoming indurated; entire, or incised; not deeply cleft (no more than emarginate); awnless (muticous), or mucronate, or awned; hairless; carinate; without a germination flap; (3–)5 nerved, or 7(–8) nerved. Palea present; relatively long; apically notched; awnless, without apical setae; textured like the lemma; not indurated; 2-nerved; 2-keeled. Palea back scabrous, or hairy. Palea keels wingless; hairy. Lodicules present; 2; free; membranous; usually ciliate; toothed. Stamens 3. Anthers (3.8–)4.2–7.2 mm long; not penicillate. Ovary glabrous. Styles free to their bases. Stigmas 2; white.
Fruit, embryo and seedling. Fruit free from both lemma and palea; small, or medium sized (2.6–3.8 mm long); ventrally longitudinally grooved; compressed dorsiventrally (ventrally). Hilum short (usually oval, rarely punctiform). Embryo small; not waisted. Endosperm hard.
Abaxial leaf blade epidermis. Costal/intercostal zonation lacking. Papillae absent. Long-cells similar in shape costally and intercostally; of similar wall thickness costally and intercostally (walls thick and sinuous). Mid-intercostal long-cells fusiform (slightly); having markedly sinuous walls. Microhairs absent. Stomata absent or very rare. Intercostal short-cells common; not paired; silicified, or not silicified. Costal short-cells neither distinctly grouped into long rows nor predominantly paired. Costal silica bodies absent, or poorly developed; tall-and-narrow.
Transverse section of leaf blade, physiology. C3; XyMS+. Mesophyll with non-radiate chlorenchyma. Leaf blade adaxially flat. Midrib conspicuous (in a small, central rib); with one bundle only. Bulliforms not present in discrete, regular adaxial groups (with indistinct ‘hinges’ only). All the vascular bundles accompanied by sclerenchyma. Combined sclerenchyma girders present; forming ‘figures’. Sclerenchyma not all bundle-associated. The ‘extra’ sclerenchyma in a continuous abaxial layer.
Taxonomy. Pooideae; Poodae; Poeae.
Distribution, ecology, phytogeography. 4 species; extra-tropical Australasia. Xerophytic; species of open habitats; halophytic. F. littoralis and F. pubinervis are conspicous littoral sand and fore-dunes species.
Australian. North and East Australian and South-West Australian. Temperate and South-Eastern Australian.
References, etc. Morphological/taxonomic: see Jacobs (1990), Telopea 3, 601–603 for comments on Austrofestuca/Festucella/Hookerochloa. Leaf anatomical: this project.
Special comments. Clearly distinct from Festuca, but see Festucella, Hookerochloa.
Cite this publication as: Watson, L., and Dallwitz, M. J. (1992 onwards). ‘Grass Genera of the World: Descriptions, Illustrations, Identification, and Information Retrieval; including Synonyms, Morphology, Anatomy, Physiology, Phytochemistry, Cytology, Classification, Pathogens, World and Local Distribution, and References.’ http://biodiversity.uno.edu/delta/. Version: 18th August 1999. Dallwitz (1980), Dallwitz, Paine and Zurcher (1993 onwards, 1998), and Watson and Dallwitz (1994), and Watson, Dallwitz, and Johnston (1986) should also be cited (see References).