Skip Navigation
Sign In
  • Home
  • Search
    • Search Collections
    • Map Search
  • Chicago Botanic Garden
    • Project Information
    • Checklists
    • Create a Checklist
    • Dynamic Key
  • Denver Botanic Gardens
    • Project Information
    • Checklists
    • Create a Checklist
    • Dynamic Key
  • Desert Botanical Garden
    • Project Information
    • Checklists
    • Create a Checklist
    • Dynamic Key
  • NY Botanical Garden
    • Project Information
    • Checklists
    • Create a Checklist
    • Dynamic Key
  • Marie Selby Botanical Gardens
    • Project Information
    • Checklists
    • Create a Checklist
    • Dynamic Key
  • Sitemap

Nassella manicata

Nassella manicata (Desv.) Barkworth  
Family: Poaceae
Tropical Tussock Grass, more...Andean Tussockgrass
[Stipa manicata E. Desv.]
Nassella manicata image
  • FNA
  • Resources
Mary E. Barkworth. Flora of North America

Plants perennial; cespitose, not rhizomatous. Culms 40-80 cm tall, 1.5-2.5 mm thick, erect, internodes glabrous; nodes 2-3, pubescent. Sheaths glabrous; collars mostly glabrous, with tufts of hair at the sides, hairs 0.5-1 mm; ligules 0.1-0.3 mm, glabrous, truncate; blades 12-25 cm long, 1.5-2.5 mm wide, flat to convolute, pubescent. Panicles 10-20 cm, open; branches 1-3 cm, ascending to somewhat spreading, scabridulous, with 1-8 spikelets; pedicels 1-8 mm, pubescent. Glumes subequal, 10-15 mm long, 1.5-2 mm wide, narrowly lanceolate, 3-veined, keeled, keels scabrous; florets 6-8 mm long, 0.9-1.1 mm wide, terete, widest near or slightly above midlength; calluses 1.5-2.5 mm, sharp, strigose; lemmas papillose-tuberculate, constricted and purplish below the crown, midveins and exposed marginal veins pubescent over the proximal 2/3, glabrous between the veins at maturity; crowns about 1 mm long, about 0.5 mm wide, conspicuous, more or less straight-sided, purple, rims with 1-1.5 mm hairs; awns 30-50 mm, clearly twice-geniculate, terminal segment straight; anthers 3-4 mm in putatively chasmogamous florets, 0.3-0.5 mm in cleistogamous florets, both ranges sometimes present within a panicle. Caryopses about 3 mm. 2n = unknown.

Nassella manicata is native to Ecuador, Chile, Argentina, and Uruguay, growing on the foothills of the Andes Mountains. It is established in three California counties, growing in disturbed sites, including grazed meadows and old gold tailings. It has also been recorded from Mississippi; it is not known whether the Mississippi population has persisted.

Nassella manicata resembles N. leucotricha and N. pulchra. It differs from both in its shorter florets and more strongly developed crowns. It was misidentified as Nassella formicarum (Delile) Barkworth in the Jepson Manual (Barkworth 1993).

Nassella manicata
Open Interactive Map
Nassella manicata image
Nassella manicata image
Nassella manicata image
Nassella manicata image
Nassella manicata image
Click to Display
6 Total Media
Institute for Museum and Library Services KU BI Logo Logo for the Biodiversity Knowledge Integration Center

This project was made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services [MG-70-19-0057-19].

EcoFlora is part of the SEINet Portal Network. Learn more here.

Powered by Symbiota.