Festuca baffinensis Polunin

Desjardins, Émilie, Lai, Sandra, Payette, Serge, Dubé, Martin, Sokoloff, Paul C., St-Louis, Annie, Poulin, Marie-Pier, Legros, Jade, Sirois, Luc, Vézina, François, Tam, Andrew & Berteaux, Dominique, 2021, Survey of the vascular plants of Alert (Ellesmere Island, Canada), a polar desert at the northern tip of the Americas, Check List 17 (1), pp. 181-225 : 204-205

Festuca baffinensis Polunin

Materials examined. CANADA – Nunavut • Ellesmere Island, CFS Alert ; 82°30′04″N, 062°52′41″W; 91 m a.s.l.; 2 Aug. 2019; habitat: xeric in a slope, with hummocks made of till and rocks, and sparse dominance of Saxifraga oppositifolia and moss; QFA0635544 .

Identification. Plants 6.5–11.0 cm high; herbaceous; caespitose. Fibrous roots present. Stems 5–9 cm long; erect or ascending; hairy, with short hyaline hairs (densely hairy below the inflorescence). Leaves basal and cauline. Sheath margins glabrous. Ligules 0.1–0.2 mm long. Basal leaf blades 21–35 mm long, 0.3–0.4 mm wide; linear; rolled in bud or folded; abaxial surface glabrous; adaxial surface glabrous or hairy, with few short hairs; margins scabrous. Flag leaf blades 10.1–11.0 mm long, 0.3–0.5 mm wide; tip linear. Inflo- rescence a dense panicle; 14–25 mm long. Branches at lowest inflorescence node 1–2; 1.9–5.2 mm long. Pedi- cels scabrous. Spikelets 4.2–6.5 mm long, 1.9–3.1 mm wide. Florets per spikelet 2–3. First glumes 2.1–3.5 mm long; lanceolate; surface glabrous; margins ciliate; apices acuminate. Second glumes 3.3–4.0 mm long (shorter than the lowest floret); lanceolate; veins 3; surface gla- brous; margins ciliate; apices acuminate. Lemmas 3.2– 4.3 mm long, 0.6–0.9 mm wide; lanceolate; rounded on the back; veins 4–5; surface dull and sparsely scabrous; apices ciliate; awned. Awn 1.4–1.6 mm long; arising from the tip. Palea 4.4–4.8 mm long; veins scabrous. Rachilla between first and second lemmas 0.4–1.1 mm long. Androecium with 3 stamens and 0.6–1.0 mm long. Gynoecium with 2 styles.

The five Festuca Linnaeus species present on Elles-

mere Island ( GBIF 2020) were found in our survey. Among the four Festuca species without pseudoviviparous spikelets ( F. baffinensis , F. brachyphylla Schultes & Schultes f. subsp. brachyphylla , F. edlundiae S.G. Aiken, Consaul, & Lefkovitch , and F. hyperborea Holmen ex Frederiksen ; Aiken et al. 2007), F. baffinensis can be differentiated by having dense, short hairs on the culms, especially below the inflorescence, whereas F. brachyphylla , F. edlundiae , and F. hyperborea have glabrous or sparsely hairy culms ( Aiken et al. 1995; Aiken et al. 2007).

Festuca brachyphylla Schultes & Schultes f. subsp .

brachyphylla

Figures 10C, 12A

Materials examined. CANADA – Nunavut • Ellesmere Island, CFS Alert ; 82°26′38″N, 062°11′23″W; 178 m a.s.l.; 23 Jul. 2019; habitat: mesic, with polygonal patterned ground made of till, dominated by Alopecurus magellanicus ; QFA0635541 .

Identification. Plants 3.5–8.5 cm high; herbaceous; caespitose. Fibrous roots present. Stems 2.5–8.0 cm long; erect, ascending, or semi-prostrate; glabrous. Leaves basal and cauline. Sheath margins glabrous. Ligules 0.2–0.4 mm long. Basal leaf blades 14–22 mm long, 0.4–1.1 mm wide; linear; rolled in bud; abaxial surface glabrous; adaxial surface glabrous or scaberulous; margins scabrous. Flag leaf blades 2.8–7.0 mm long, 0.2–0.4 mm wide; tip linear. Inflorescence a dense panicle; 10–18 mm long. Branch at lowest inflorescence node 1; 1.9–2.1 mm long. Pedicels scabrous. Spikelets 5.9–6.2 mm long, 3.0– 4.1 mm wide. Florets per spikelet 2–4. First glumes 1.8–2.3 mm long; lanceolate; surface glabrous; margins ciliate; apices acuminate. Second glumes 2.7–3.4 mm long (shorter than the lowest floret); lanceolate; veins 3; surface glabrous; margins ciliate; apices acute. Lemmas 3.3–4.1 mm long, 0.6–0.8 mm wide; lanceolate; rounded on the back; veins 5; surface dull and sparsely scabrous; apices glabrous or ciliate; awned. Awn 0.7–1.2 mm long; arising from the tip. Palea 3.6–3.9 mm long; veins scabrous. Rachilla between first and second lemmas 0.6–1.1 mm long. Androecium with 3 stamens and 1.0– 1.3 mm long anthers. Gynoecium with 2 styles.

Festuca brachyphylla subsp. brachyphylla , F. edlundiae , and F. hyperborea are very similar and can be differentiated by the following characters: short flag leaf blade with a spoon-shaped tip in F. hyperborea (0–8 mm long but usually <5 mm), whereas the flag leaf blade is longer with a linear tip in F. brachyphylla and F. edlundiae (2–15 mm long); culms of F. edlundiae are often semi-prostate (erect only at anthesis), whereas culms of the other species are erect; leaf cross section in F. edlundiae shows five well-developed ribs, whereas F. brachyphylla has one well-defined rib and 2–4 variously defined ribs, and F. hyperborea has five but less defined ribs than F. edlundiae ( Fig. 12; Aiken et al. 1995). Moreover,

shorter plants of F. brachyphylla are superficially simi- lar to F. hyperborea but are separated by the shape of the second glumes, which are supposed to be lanceolate in F. brachyphylla and obovate in F. hyperborea ( Aiken et al. 1995; Aiken et al. 2007). However, we did not observe obovate second glumes in F. hyperborea ; instead, they were more lanceolate or oblong.