Common Name: Rocky Mountain fescue

Duration: Perennial

Nativity: Native

Lifeform: Graminoid

General: Cespitose native perennial 25-50 cm tall with rolled leaf blades, a contracted panicle, and 3-5 flowerd spikelets; without rhizomes.

Vegetative: Blades mostly basal, rolled, < 2 mm wide, glabrous to sparsely pubescent, with 1-4 ribs; abaxial sclerenchyma in 3-5 strands; stems 25-50 cm tall, usually 3-5 times higher than the vegetative leaf height, usually smooth and glabrous; ligules <1 mm long.

Inflorescence: Panicle 3-10 cm long, contracted, with 1-2 erect branches per node; lower branches with 2 or more spikelets; spikelets 4-9 mm long, with 3-5 florets; glumes slightly shorter than the upper florets, 1-5 mm long; lemmas 3-4 mm long, mostly smooth, with awns 1-2 mm long; paleas same length as or slightly shorter than lemmas; anthers 1 mm long.

Ecology: Found in grasslands, open forests, and sand dunes in lowland, alpine and subalpine habitats to 10,000 ft. (3000 m).

Distribution: Found in the western, northern, and northeastern United States.

Notes: Is closely related to F. brachyphylla and F. ovina and has been labeled as F. brachyphylla ssp. Saximontana and F. ovina. F. brachyphylla has slightly shorter anthers at <1 mm, and F. ovina has larger anthers at 2 mm. Also, F. saximontana var. purpusiana and var. robertsiana are similar to var. saximonta, described here. However, the two other var. have shorter stems, to 37 cm tall, and the abaxial sclerenchyma has more strands, with 5-7 narrow strands.

Ethnobotany: Unknown

Etymology: Festuca is Latin for grass stalk or straw, saximontana comes from saxum, meaning rock, and montana refers to being of the mountains.

Editor: LKearsley, 2012