Festuca viviparoidea Krajina ex Pavlick s.l.
In Can. J. Bot. 62: 2454. 1984.
F. vivipara subsp. glabra Frederiksen, Nord J. Bot. 1: 288. 1985.
Type: Greenland, Jameson Land, Gurreholm, 14 VIII. 1958, Holmen 807. (Holotype C, Isotype O! Numerous chromosomatum huius populationis 2n=56).
F. ovina var. vivipara L. pro parte. Sp. Pl. ed. 2, 1: 108. 1762.
F. brevifolia R. Br. var. arctica Saint-Yves subv. genuina f. vivipara Saint-Yves, Candollea 2: 253–254. 1925. Type: Greenland. Arakamtchetchem, Herb U.S.N. Pacif. Expl. Exp. 1853–56, leg. Wright. (Holotype: P).
F. brachyphylla f. vivipara Skvorcov. Fl. Arct. URSS. 222–223. 1964, nom. nud.
F. ×viviparoidea Krajina, Biota N. Amer. 2: 342. 1980, nom. nud.
F. viviparoidea subsp. krajinae Pavlick, Can. J. Bot. 62: 2457. 1984. Type: British Columbia, Liard River Basin, Fairy Lake, 26 July 1977, Argus and Haber 9987. (Holotype V! Isotype CAN!).
Plants caespitose; less than 15 cm high, or more than 15 cm high; 11–28 cm high (bluish grey-green). Ground-level or under-ground stems not developed horizontally or vertically at, on, or below, the ground. Aerial stems erect; glabrous (Canadian specimens), or sparsely hairy (Greenland specimens). Leaves mostly in a basal tuft. Prophylls 10–20 mm long; with hairy veins; with pronounced keels. Sheaths with the margins fused only in the lower part; glabrous, or with trichomes (that are minute); hirsute. Ligules 0.2–0.5 mm long; membranous; hairy; transversely oblong; apices acute; erose and cleft. Blades 30–120 mm long; 0.35–0.75 mm wide (when folded, with limited sclerenchyma strands seen in leaf cross sections that are similar to those of F. brachyphylla and unlike those of F. ovina); spreading; folded in bud (with margins inrolled and sometimes overlapping); without auricles; involute; midvein similar in size to other veins in the leaf (usually 3 larger veins, 2–4 smaller veins). Blades adaxial surface glabrous, or hairy. Blades abaxial surface hairy.
Flowering culm nodes not exposed, or becoming exposed; number visible 0–1. Flag leaf sheaths not inflated. Inflorescence paniculate; dense; linear; 1–3 cm long; 5–15 mm wide. Inflorescence. Inflorescence main axis scabrous. Number of inflorescence branches at lowest node 0–1 (smaller inflorescences have a single spikelet per rachis node). Inflorescence primary branches 0.2–0.6 mm long; scabrous; with appressed secondary branches. Spikelets. Spikelets pedicellate (characteristically proliferating); disarticulating above the glumes; laterally compressed; lanceolate; 7–15 mm long (or longer, including the vegetative proliferation); 2–3 mm wide. Florets per spikelet 2–3. Glumes. Glumes unequal. First glume 0.7–0.8 × the length of the second glume; 0.3–0.45 × spikelet length; 3–4 mm long; lanceolate; glabrous, or with trichomes (hairs at the apex only); margins ciliate; veins 1; apex acuminate. Second glume 0.4–0.9 × as long as the spikelet; almost as long as, or longer than, the lowest floret; lanceolate; 3.6–6 mm long; glabrous, or with trichomes (scabrous at apex only); veins 3. Rachilla internode 0.1–0.3 mm long. Rachilla not pronounced between the florets; terminating in a vestigial floret (or terminating in a vegetatively proliferating floret). Callus not differentiated. Lemmas. Lemma 3.6–6 mm long; lanceolate; keeled (more pronounced as lemma structure becomes leaf-like in vegetative proliferation); surface dull (deep purple); surface sparsely scabrous; surface with trichomes on and between the veins; veins 5. Lemma apex acuminate; entire; glabrous; awnless, or awned (often awnless in proliferating spikelets). Awn arising from the tip; 0.1–0.3 mm long. Palea vestigial, or absent (rarely formed). Perianth reduced to lodicules. Anthers 2 mm long (when present). Styles 2. Fruit sessile. Fruit dry; indehiscent. Seeds 1.
Chromosome information. 2n = 49, 56 (Frederiksen 1981).
Distribution. Arctic Islands: Ellesmere.
Ecology and habitat. Substrates: hummocks, tundra, slopes; imperfectly drained moist areas; gravel (and turf). Habitats: Occurring in tundra turf, gravel, and moist herb mats. Reported from Northern Ellesmere Island. The limited records are of plants with spikelets that are beginning to vegetatively proliferate. Except in this character they cannot be distinguished from specimens of either Festuca baffinensis or F. brachyphylla.
Taxon as an environmental indicator. The phenomenon of vegetative proliferation in grasses has been observed to be a response of plants to environmental stresses such as over-watering or over-fertilising in greenhouse conditions. If further collections of this taxon are made in the High Arctic, very thorough habitat notes would be relevant. It is possible that the collections to date are vegetatively proliferating plants of either F. brachyphylla or F. baffinensis, growing under environmentally stressful conditions on Northern Ellesmere Island but there has been limited material on which to base this conclusion. Festuca rubra proliferates in cold, damp sites along the North American east coast, and it is possible that the colder, harsher conditions on Northern Ellesmere trigger the proliferation found in plants called F. viviparoidea.
Notes. Porsild (1964) mentions F. vivipara (L.) Sm. noting that the Canadian specimens are similar to F. baffinensis and F. brachyphylla, but the panicle is always proliferous. Frederiksen (1981) stated that "According to a handwritten note by Holmen, the chromosome number given for Plantae Vasculares Groenlandicae Exsiccatae nr. 22 belongs to the above-mentioned holotype. The number 2n = 56 was published (Holmen and Laegaard 1960), but re-examination shows 2n = 49 to be correct, and as far as I know no other numbers have been known from Greenland. . . 2n = 56 was found in material from Alaska and Wrangel Island.
This species has very often been connected with F. brachyphylla, and morphologically it looks very much like this species. In the few cases where anthers were observed, they were about 2 mm. As F. brachyphylla is very distinct on account of its very short anthers, rarely if ever exceeding 1.2 mm (Frederiksen 1977), and as F. brachyphylla has the leaf sheaths partly split while they are always open in F. vivipara, no close connection seems to exist between these two taxa. On the other hand F. vivipara subsp. glabra in nearly all examined characters seems isolated from the two other subspecies; thus it possibly has another origin." Alexeev (1985) published leaf cross sections of this taxon. He elevated F. vivipara subsp. hirsuta to F. frederikseniae E.B. Alexeev.
A specimen at CAN that was annotated by Signe Frederiksen in 1987, was collected on Ellesmere Island, Lower Dumbell Lake (water supply lake for Alert) growing in moist herbmat C.R. Harrington 201, August 18, 1959. An extensive search in 1992 to find the voucher for the mapped record from Ellesmere Island, Judge Daily Promitory (Frederiksen 1981) was unsuccessful. The CAN specimen from the Canadian Arctic may be an F. baffinensis × F. brachyphylla hybrid. The plants have very young inflorescences with few definitive characteristics.
Illustrations. • Distribution map.
Cite this publication as: ‘S.G. Aiken, L.L. Consaul, and M.J. Dallwitz. 1995 onwards. Poaceae of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago: Descriptions, Illustrations, Identification, and Information Retrieval. Version: 10th December 2001. http://www.mun.ca/biology/delta/arcticf/’. Dallwitz (1980), Dallwitz, Paine and Zurcher (1993, 1995, 2000) , and Aiken, Dallwitz et al. (1999) should also be cited (see References).
