Pipe fescue

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Pipe fescue
Reed fescue (Festuca arundinacea)

Reed fescue ( Festuca arundinacea )

Systematics
Monocots
Commelinids
Order : Sweet grass (Poales)
Family : Sweet grasses (Poaceae)
Genre : Fescue ( festuca )
Type : Pipe fescue
Scientific name
Festuca arundinacea
Schreb.

The fescue ( Festuca arundinacea . Schreb also Festuca elatior var. Arundinacea (allotments) Wimmer ; Festuca elatior . Subsp arundinacea (allotments) Hackel ; Lolium arundinaceum (allotments) SJ Darbyshire .) Belongs to the family of grasses (Poaceae).

features

Stem with leaf sheath and ciliate auricles
Panicle branch with spikelets
Fanned spikelet
Elongated umbilical spot

The fescue is a perennial grass that forms dark green clumps . More rarely, it forms subterranean runners up to ten centimeters long that grow up outside the lowest leaf sheaths . The stalks reach heights of 50 to 200 (rarely 250) centimeters. They are glabrous, sometimes rough under the panicle.

The leaf sheaths are ciliate. The ligula is a membranous border and one to two millimeters long. The leaf blade is five to twelve (18) millimeters wide, (10) 20 to 70 centimeters long, and spread flat. She has lashed ears at the bottom. The hairs of the auricles are single to numerous and around 0.5 millimeters long. The upper side of the spreading is rough, the underside smooth or rough.

inflorescence

The panicle is ten to 30 (50) centimeters high, loose and upright or hangs over on one side. The side branches stand in twos at the lowest nodes , the shorter branch has four to eight spikelets, the longer five to 15 spikelets. The spikelets are three to ten flowered and 10 to 18 millimeters long. The glumes are unequal, lanceolate, pointed and glabrous. The lower one is one-nerved and three to six millimeters long, the upper three-nerved and 4.5 to 7 millimeters long. The lemmas are five-nerved, five to nine millimeters long, lanceolate to oblong, pointed or two-pointed. It is not awned or with a short awn , membranous and rough in the upper part. The palea are single-nerved and as long as the lemma.

The anthers are three to four millimeters long. Flowering time is June to August.

The caryopses are long-elliptical in outline and glabrous.

The number of chromosomes is usually 2n = 42, the plant is then hexaploid . There are also clans with 2n = 28, 56 and 70.

Reed fescue ( Festuca arundinacea )

Distribution and location

The reed fescue is native to North Africa, from Europe to northwestern China and the Himalayas and Macaronesia . In a number of temperate areas, such as the USA, it was introduced as a useful plant.

It grows mainly in wet meadows and in crawling and step turf, but also in alluvial forests, on banks and on roadsides. It inhabits the planar to upper montane altitude range . In the Alps it rises to around 1460 meters. In the Allgäu Alps, it rises up to 1,300 meters above sea level on Riedbergstrasse in Bavaria. In terms of plant sociology , it is a characteristic of the Potentillo-Festucetum arundinaceae Nordh associations. 1940 and Dactylo-Festucetum arundinaceae Tx. 1950, the main occurrence is in the order Molinietalia caeruleae W. Koch 1926.

The reed fescue colonizes waterlogged and seeping, nutrient and base-rich, neutral to moderately acidic soils that are humic, sandy or pure clay soils (raw soil). He prefers limestone soils. It shows soil compaction and lack of oxygen in the soil, as well as waterlogging. It is flood-resistant and a light plant.

Systematics

The pipe fescue is counted to the species group of the meadow fescue. It is classified by some authors in the genus Lolium as Lolium arundinaceum (Schreb.) Darbysh. posed.

There are several subspecies, two of which are native to Central Europe:

  • Festuca arundinacea subsp. arundinacea : The lemmas are not awned, they rarely have awning tips up to 0.5 millimeters long. It occurs from Europe to the Himalayas and China and from Macaronesia to northern Africa. In Germany it occurs mainly in the west.
  • Festuca arundinacea subsp. orientalis (Hackel) Tzvelev (Syn .: Lolium arundinaceum subsp. orientale (Hack.) GHLoos ): It has awned lemmas and the awn of the upper flowers is 0.8 to four millimeters long. It occurs from eastern Central Europe and Southeast Europe to Turkey and Central Asia. In Germany it occurs predominantly in the eastern areas.

The remaining subspecies are:

  • Festuca arundinacea subsp. atlantigena (St.-Yves) Auquier : Home is Spain and Morocco.
  • Festuca arundinacea subsp. cirtensis (St.-Yves) Gamisans : The home is Corsica and Algeria.
  • Festuca arundinacea subsp. fenas (Lag.) Arcang. : The homeland is southern and eastern Europe, North Africa and western Asia.
  • Festuca arundinacea subsp. uechtritziana (Wiesb.) Hegi : Home is south-eastern France.

Use and cultivation

The reed fescue is considered a medium-quality forage grass. There are three varieties for forage and 16 varieties for lawn. It is not particularly demanding, but it responds very well to fertilizer. It is insensitive to summer floods and silting. When grazing it is more likely to be avoided by cattle and then spreads. It is only eaten when it is young on pastures. By the Bültenwuchs it devalues the turf . When mowed early, the cane fescue is a coarse, medium-quality hay grass.

As a result of the breeding process in recent years, there are now some new varieties that are hardly spurned by cattle thanks to their fine leaves. These new "fine-leaved fescue" varieties combine the good growth properties with a high feed value for cattle feeding. Fescue fescue (Festuca arundinacea) is very productive and not very demanding on soil and water supply. Fescue fescue prefers conditions of variable humidity, but also tolerates dry periods and cold very well. Compared to other forage grasses, it has very pronounced roots. As a result, it can hardly be impressed by a temporary lack of water, remains green for a long time and is less susceptible to diseases. Its growth is very balanced in summer. The fescue develops rather slowly after sowing, but once it has established itself, it is very competitive and persistent.

Thanks to these properties, the fescue could definitely be used as pasture grass instead of the ryegrass or the meadow fescue.

Outside Central Europe (Mediterranean region, overseas) there are cultivars that are valued because they stay green for a long time in cold and dry conditions.

The old hard-leaved varieties are not recommended for use in grasslands, except on cold, damp soils and in pressurized water and floodplain areas. However, it is a good soil stabilizer on damp embankments. It is attracting increasing attention in heavily used sports turf.

In good grassland, it is combated by drainage, pasture on small paddocks and deep mowing after pasture.

Receipts and further information

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Conert: Parey's book of grasses. 2000.
  2. ↑ a b c d Rafaël Govaerts (ed.): Festuca arundinacea. In: World Checklist of Selected Plant Families (WCSP) - The Board of Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew . Retrieved May 27, 2020.
  3. ↑ Erhard Dörr, Wolfgang Lippert : Flora of the Allgäu and its surroundings. Volume 1, IHW, Eching 2001, ISBN 3-930167-50-6 , p. 198.
  4. ↑ mafic: Exkursionsflora of Austria. 2005
  5. ^ According to Germplasm Resources Information Network
  6. ↑ a b c d Klapp, Opitz: Pocket book of grasses. 2006.

Web links

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