''Festuca edlundiae'', commonly known as Edlund's fescue, is a native, perennial tufted grass found in
Alaska, Canadian arctic islands, northern
Greenland, far eastern arctic
Russia and
Svalbard
Svalbard ( , ), also known as Spitsbergen, or Spitzbergen, is a Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic Ocean. North of mainland Europe, it is about midway between the northern coast of Norway and the North Pole. The islands of the group range ...
.
The
specific name Specific name may refer to:
* in Database management systems, a system-assigned name that is unique within a particular database
In taxonomy, either of these two meanings, each with its own set of rules:
* Specific name (botany), the two-part (bino ...
honours Doctor
Sylvia Edlund
Sylvia Anita Edlund (August 15, 1945 – November 15, 2014) was a Canadian botanist. '' Festuca edlundiae,'' commonly known as Edlund's fescue, a high arctic grass, was named in her honour for her extensive contributions to Arctic field wor ...
, a Canadian botanist. It was first described by
Susan Aiken,
Laurie Consaul and
Leonard Lefkovitch in 1995.
Description
It is closely related to ''
Festuca brachyphylla
''Festuca brachyphylla'', commonly known as alpine fescue or short-leaved fescue, is a grass native to Eurasia, North America, and the Arctic. The grass is used for erosion control and revegetation. The specific epithet ''brachyphylla'' means "sh ...
''. The plant is similar to boreal fescue (''
Festuca hyperborea'') but has flag leaf (final leaf) blades that are 5 mm or longer and has larger
spikelets. It grows in dense clumps without
rhizome
In botany and dendrology, a rhizome (; , ) is a modified subterranean plant stem that sends out roots and shoots from its nodes. Rhizomes are also called creeping rootstalks or just rootstalks. Rhizomes develop from axillary buds and grow hori ...
s.
Habitat
The plant grows in the High Arctic in fine-grained and
calcareous soils.
References
External links
*
*
edlundiae
Grasses of Canada
Grasses of the United States
Grasses of Russia
Flora of Northern America
Flora of Northern Europe
Plants described in 1995
{{Pooideae-stub