BOTANICAL AND ECOLOGICAL CHARACTERISTICS
SPECIES: Festuca rubra | Red Fescue 



GENERAL BOTANICAL CHARACTERISTICS : 
Red fescue is a cool-season [83], perennial, loosely to densely tufted
grass [26,30,42].  Red fescue culms are hollow, 12 to 39 inches (30-100
cm) tall [26,74], and erect from a curved base [44,87].  Young basal
shoots emerge from leaf axils and break through the bases of leaf
sheaths.  The lower sheaths soon disintegrate into loose fibers [23,26].
Leaves are mostly basal [62,88]; blades are 2 to 6 inches (5-15 cm) long
[4,30] and 0.04 to 0.09 inch (1-2 mm) wide [26,30].  The inflorescence
is a narrow panicle 1.2 to 8 inches (3-20 cm) long [39,41].  Spikelets
are three- to ten-flowered [23,26,30,62].  Lemmas are awnless to awned
[56]; the awns are up to 0.16 inch (4 mm) long [4,39,59].  Red fescue
may spread by strong rhizomes, forming a turf; plants with this growth
form are called creeping red fescue.  Red fescue may be without
rhizomes, forming only tufts.  It may also be intermediate, forming
short rhizomes [53,71].  In some red fescue populations rhizome growth
is a response to environmental conditions [1].

Red fescue is long lived in northern latitudes and at high elevations.
It can form dense cover [83].


RAUNKIAER LIFE FORM : 
   Hemicryptophyte


REGENERATION PROCESSES : 
Red fescue reproduces by seeds and spreads vegetatively [17].

Evidence from European populations indicates that red fescue does
not form a persistent buried seedbank [11,65,77,78].

Red fescue can spread clonally by rhizomes [21]; it does not inhibit its
own spread.  The largest recorded single red fescue clone was 722 feet
(220 m) in diameter and was estimated to be over 1,000 years old [13].


SITE CHARACTERISTICS : 
Red fescue occurs on dry to wet sites [17,30] in open habitats [26] from
sea level to high elevations [39].  It is found on sand dunes
[39,42,47,51], dry beaches [1,18,23,67], and coastal headlands [23,39].
It occurs at the upper zone of tidal salt marshes [12,18,56,67].  It
grows on freshwater shores [85], bogs, and marshes [30,41].  It occurs
in mountain meadows and clearings [42].  It is found in fields, on
roadsides [62,85], and on disturbed sites [58].

Red fescue tolerates spring flooding and some water logging, and grows
well under irrigation.  It can grow on clay, loam, and sandy soils
provided moisture is adequate.  It is also able to withstand some
drought.  It tolerates low fertility soils fairly well [71]. 

Red fescue is somewhat tolerant of salinity [71]; in a saltmarsh in
Britain, red fescue occurred on the most elevated, least salty areas
[12].  Red fescue in open areas along Oregon coast headlands increases
in importance very close to the shore.  Red fescue is probably more
resistant to salt spray than are its associates on these sites [14].

In Denali National Park red fescue grows on soil with pH 5.7 to 6.0 at
the 2-inch (5 cm) level [82].  Lower pH limit for red fescue is 4.5 [83].

Red fescue is reported at the following elevations:

                      Feet            Meters

     Alaska       1,300- 3,000       396-  914    [19,82]
     Arizona      8,500-11,000     2,591-3,353    [46]
     California       0- 9,000         0-2,743    [39,56,59]
     Colorado     7,000-13,500     2,134-4,115    [9,17,36]
     Montana      3,200- 5,000       975-1,524    [17] 
     Oregon       3,700- 8,000     1,128-2,438    [2,38,43]
     Utah         4,500- 9,300     1,372-2,835    [17]
     Wyoming          8,000            2,438      [17]


SUCCESSIONAL STATUS : 
Red fescue is not shade tolerant.  It is a component of mountaintop
vegetation in the Oregon Coast Ranges.  Red fescue occurs in meadow
stands, and its cover does not decline along the meadow edge of the tree
border.  However, its cover drops to zero within the 16 foot (5 m) wide
ecocline of invading trees.  Red fescue is not found within the
established forest [54].  Red fescue occurred after logging in the
western hemlock (Tsuga heterophylla) biogeoclimatic zone in southwestern
British Columbia.  The sites had been scarified and planted with
Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii).  Red fescue occurred at 41 to 60
percent frequency in the initial seral stage after tree harvesting, when
trees were absent or present as seedlings less than 5 years old; shrub
layers were sometimes present.  Red fescue did not occur at more than
trace frequency at any later seral stage [50].

Red fescue can be a component of early successional through climax
vegetation where open conditions prevail.  In the Mount St. Helens area
of southeastern Washington, red fescue appeared on the surfaces of the
Muddy River mudflows by summer 1981, a year after the eruption of May
18, 1980.  Its frequency was 2 percent [31].

On the west slope of the Cascade Ranges in Linn County, Oregon, red fescue is
a seral dominant in a rockfell community.  It is not present in the
crustose lichen (Rhacomitrium lanuginosum), carpet moss (Polytrichum
juniperinum), and clubmoss (Selaginella wallacei) stages of earliest
succession.  It is found at the next seral stage as a little more soil
accumulates.  It is not found within the bordering closed forest of
noble fir (Abies procera) nor in the shrub community dominated by vine
maple (Acer circinatum) and Sitka alder (Alnus viridis ssp. sinuata)
[2].

Red fescue occurs in primary succession in several wetland habitats.
Red fescue occurs in subarctic northern Manitoba on the estuary of the
Churchill River.  Along the shore of the estuary, extensive riverflats
are being exposed and colonized by vegetation which forms zonation bands
running parallel to the river shoreline.  Red fescue is one of the
principal grasses in the youngest closed community on the recently
exposed flats.  Red fescue does not occur in any of the four
successively older zones, from shrub to mixed forest [64].  Red fescue
is a component of the earthquake-uplifted coastal wetlands of the Copper
River Delta of south-central Alaska.  Red fescue is a major grass on wet
meadow levees and in inter-levee basins [76].

Terraces of the McKinley River occur on the north slope of the Alaska
Range in the central section of Denali National Park.  These terraces
are of different ages and in different stages of succession, but they
are composed of similar extremely coarse glacial outwash.  Red fescue
does not occur in the pioneer stage, on terraces which are 25 to 30
years old.  It does occur in the meadow stage (on 100-year-old terraces)
and in the early shrub stage (on 150- to 200-year-old terraces).  It
does not occur in the late shrub stage nor in the climax tundra [82].


SEASONAL DEVELOPMENT : 
Red fescue starts growth early in spring, generally slows in mid-summer,
and grows vigorously from late summer until freezing [71].

Red fescue flowering times are:

     Arizona            July-August        [46]
     California         May-July           [59]
     Colorado           July-September     [17]
     Illinois           June-July          [58]
     Montana            June-August        [17]
     North Carolina     May-June           [62]
     South Carolina     May-June           [62]
     West Virginia      April-June         [74]
     Wyoming            July-September     [17]
     northeastern 
       United States    June-August        [23]

Related categories for Species: Festuca rubra | Red Fescue