Festuca L.
Type species: F. ovina L.
Perennial caespitose, stoloniferous, or rhizomatous. Leaf-sheath split to base or margins fused, apical auricles small. Ligule ciliolate. Leaf-blade convolute, or folded; usually persistent; pungent in F. ultramafica; variable in TS. Culms unbranched; nodes glabrous. Inflorescence an open or contracted panicle of 2-many-flowered laterally compressed, pedicelled spikelets disarticulating above the glumes. Glumes unequal or subequal, persistent, ± keeled and ornamented, rarely exceeding lemmas. Lemma lanceolate-acute or awned, rounded on back or slightly carinate, membranous to thinly coriaceous, 5-7-nerved, awn terminal. Palea bidentate, keels scabrid. Flowers ⚥, usually chasmogamous. Lodicules 2, unequally lobed, often hair-tipped. Stamens 3. Ovary glabrous or hispid hairy at apex. Caryopsis dorsiconvex, ventrally sulcate, free; embryo small; hilum long, linear. Fig. 6.
Key
c. 450 spp. worldwide - "A large and variable genus for which no overall treatment is available..." (Clayton and Renvoize 1986 op. cit.). Endemic spp. 9, indigenous sp. 1; naturalised spp. 3.
The genus was revised for N.Z. indigenous species by Connor, H. E. N.Z. J. Bot. 36: 329-367 (1998); Howarth, W. O. J. Linn. Soc. Lond. 48: 57-77 (1928) - incorrectly cited as vol. 68 in Connor 1998 (op. cit.) - and Saint-Yves, A. Candollea 4: 293-307 (1931) had earlier treated endemic and naturalised taxa. Variation in leaf-blade anatomy for F. matthewsii and F. novae-zelandiae is detailed in Connor, H. E., N.Z. J. Sci. 3: 468-509 (1960). Experimental hybrids between F. matthewsii and F. novae-zelandiae are fertile [Connor, H. E. N.Z. J. Bot. 6: 293-308 (1968)]; none is known in the wild.
