Common Name: small fescue Duration: Annual Nativity: Native Lifeform: Graminoid General: Annual with solitary or loosely tufted, usually glabrous but occasionally puberulent stems 15-75 cm. Vegetative: Sheaths glabrous or pubescent, ligules 0.5-1 mm, blades usually shorter than 10 cm, 0.5-1 mm wide, usually rolled, occasionally flat, glabrous or pubescent. Inflorescence: Panicles, but sometimes spikelike racemes, 2-24 cm long, 0.8-8 cm wide; branches solitary, with axillary pulvini, appressed to erect when immature, spreading to reflexed at maturity; spikelets 4-10 mm with 1-6 florets, often purple tinged, rachilla internodes 0.6-1.2 mm; glumes smooth, scabrous or pubescent, lower 1.7-5.5 mm, one half to three quarters the length of upper glumes, upper 3.5-7.5 mm; lemmas 3.5-9.5 mm, smooth, scabrous or evenly pubescent, 5-veined, awns of the lowermost lemma in each spikelet 6-20 mm. Ecology: Found on dry slopes and rocky hillsides, often in disturbed areas below 5,000 ft (1524 m); flowers April-June. Notes: There are three varieties in the region: var. ciliata, var. microstachys, and var. pauciflora. They are distinguished by the glumes and lemmas being smooth or scabrous in var. pauciflora, the glumes and lemmas being pubescent in var. ciliata, and the glumes being glabrous and the lemmas being pubescent in var. microstachys. Ethnobotany: Unknown Etymology: Festuca is Latin for grass stalk or straw, while microstachys is from the Greek words for small and ear of corn or spike. Synonyms: None Editor: SBuckley, 2010