Comprehensive Description
provided by North American Flora
Avena mortoniana Scribn. Bot. Gaz. 21: 133. 1896
Perennial; culms densely tufted, with numerous leafy shoots, 10-20 cm. tall; sheaths pale, papery, retrorsely scabrous to puberulent; ligule minute, pubescent; blades erect, firm, involute, often nearly equaling the panicle, minutely scaberulous; panicle short-exserted, purplish, narrow, 2-5 cm. long, the short branches erect, bearing a single erect, mostly 2-flowered spikelet 1-1.2 cm. long; glumes subequal, exceeding the florets, the first 1-nerved, the second 3-nerved; lemmas firm, 7-8 mm. long, the callus and rachilla white-bearded, the apex hyaline, 4-toothed, the awn twisted, flexuous, 1-1.5 cm. long.
Typb locality: Silver Plume, Colorado (Shear 697).
Distribution: Alpine meadows, Colorado, Utah, and New Mexico.
- bibliographic citation
- Albert Spear Hitchcock, Jason Richard Swallen, Agnes Chase. 1939. (POALES); POACEAE (pars). North American flora. vol 17(8). New York Botanical Garden, New York, NY
