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Vegetative Morphology

 
Plants usually perennial, annual in some environments that have a sufficient growing season for seed production in a single year; cespitose or matlike.
Culms 2-19 cm, erect or procumbent, not rooting at the lower nodes, glabrous.
Prophylls 4-10 mm.
Sheaths of basal leaves usually fused only near the base.
Sheaths of flag leaves closed for at least 1/2 of their length.
Auricles absent.
Ligules membranous, glabrous, acute.
Blades flat or conduplicate.

Reproductive Morphology

 
Inflorescences panicles.
Spikelets pedicellate, usually with 1 floret, laterally compressed to nearly terete.
Rachillas not prolonged beyond the florets.
Disarticulation above the glumes and beneath the florets.
Glumes to 1/3 the length of the florets, ovate, without veins, caducous or persistent.
Lower glumes highly reduced.
Calluses short, glabrous.
Lemmas 1-3-veined, not strongly keeled, unawned.
Paleas subequal to the lemmas.
Anthers 1 or 2.
Lodicules 2, free, glabrous.
Ovaries glabrous.
Caryopses exceeding the lemmas at maturity.

Species Distribution Maps

Phippsia algida Phippsia concinna

Chromosome Number(s)

x = 7

Additional Notes

Named for Constantine John Phipps (1744-1792), a captain in Britain's Royal Navy and an arctic explorer.

Phippsia has two species, one of which is found in arctic Eurasia, Greenland, and possibly also the Canadian arctic islands; the other is circumpolar in the arctic and is also known from the Rocky Mountains of North America and the high Andes of South America.

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Name/Synonymy Publication Info

Phippsia (Trin.) R. Br., Chloris melvill. 27 (1823). Vilfa subg. Phippsia [as "Phipsia"] Trin. in Sprengel, Neue Entd. 2:37 (1821). TYPE: Phippsia algida (Sol.) R. Br.

Treatment from

M.E. Barkworth. Phippsia in Flora of North America, volume 24. In prep. Oxford University Press.

Fact Sheet Developed By

Pedro Oñativia Lake © 2006.