| | Festuca of North America |
Byull. Mosk. O-va Ispyt. Prir. Otd. Biol. 88: 103. 1983. Type: U.S.A. South Carolina: Greenville Co., grassy abandoned lawn 4 miles west of Marietta, 1 June 1969. W.T. Batson s.n. Holotype: S.
Notes. Described by Alexeev (1983). This may be an introduced species and possibly a cultivar of F. valesiaca Schleich. ex Gaud. Compare the leaf cross section of F. mariettana in Alexeev (1983) with the leaf cross section of F. valesiaca Schleich. ex Gaud. illustrated in the image library. Alexeev (1983) stated that this is one of the numerous species which occupy an intermediate position between the "sulcate" (subsect. Intravaginales Hack.) and the "rubroid" fescues (subsect. Extravaginales Hack.) in the system of the genus. In the anatomical structure of the laminae, the degree of closure of the sheaths and a number of other characters, F. mariettana is similar to the Arizona endemic F. calligera (Piper) Rydb., but differs in having smooth leaves. Alexeev (1983) speculated that it is probably endemic in the mountain meadows of the Appalachians. This has not been investigated.
We advise against extracting comparative information from the descriptions. This is much more easily achieved using the DELTA data files or the interactive key, which allows access to the character list, illustrations with detailed captions, full and partial descriptions, diagnostic descriptions, differences and similarities between taxa, lists of taxa exhibiting or lacking specified attributes, and distributions of character states within any set of taxa. See also Guidelines for using data taken from Web publications.
Cite this publication as: ‘Aiken, S.G., Dallwitz, M.J., McJannet, C.L. and Consaul, L.L. 1996 onwards. Festuca of North America: descriptions, illustrations, identification, and information retrieval. Version: 14th February 2019. delta-intkey.com’. Aiken, Dallwitz, McJannet, and Consaul (1997) should also be cited (see References).