tufted hair grass (Dvarčionių pievos flora)

tufted hair grass

Deschampsia cespitosa

Summary ⁷

Deschampsia cespitosa, commonly known as Tufted Hair-grass or Tussock grass is a perennial tufted plant in the grass family Poaceae. Distribution of this Deschampsia grass species is widespread including the eastern and western coasts of North America, parts of South America, Eurasia and Australia.

National distribution ⁸

Canada

Origin: Native

Regularity: Regularly occurring

Currently: Present

Confidence: Confident

Description ⁹

Perennial, densely tufted. Culms erect, slender to stout, 30–150 cm tall, 1–3 mm in diam., 1–3-noded. Leaf sheaths loose, glabrous; leaf blades linear, flat or folded, up to 30 cm, 1–5 mm wide, abaxial surface smooth, adaxial surface with coarse sharp ridges, densely scabrid; ligule obtuse to acuminate, 2–7(–12) mm. Panicle usually open, often nodding, infrequently loosely contracted, ovate to narrowly oblong in outline, up to 30 cm or more, greenish or purplish sometimes with golden sheen; branches slender, bearing spikelets on distal part. Spikelets 2.5–7 mm, florets (1–)2(–3), rachilla internode ca. 1 mm; glumes slightly longer to slightly shorter than florets, lower glume slightly shorter than or equaling upper glume, 1-veined, upper glume 3-veined, apex acute; callus hairs ca. 1/3 lemma length; lemmas 2.5–3.5 mm, awned from near base to near middle, rarely awnless, apex broad, toothed or erose; awn straight or slightly bent, slightly shorter to longer than lemma. Anthers 1.2–2 mm. Fl. and fr. Jul–Sep.

Synonym ¹⁰

Aira cespitosa Linnaeus, Sp. Pl. 1: 64. 1753.

Habitat characteristics ¹¹

More info for the terms: facultative wetland species, peat, tundra

Tufted hairgrass is common in grassland communities within its
circumglobal range. In the Northern Hemisphere it occurs from sea level
to over 14,100 feet (4,300 m) elevation [10]. It is found in very moist
to saturated habitats at the margins of bogs and marshes and in sloughs,
moist areas along shores, drainage ditches, and moist draws, and in
moderately dry to very dry locations on slopes [34,43]. It is
frequently found on disturbed sites, especially at higher elevations and
moist habitats [10].

In Colorado tufted hairgrass grows best in moist habitats, wet meadows,
and bogs. It often occurs in nearly pure stands in moist, favorable
sites. It generally requires 20 inches (500 mm) of precipitation a year
[23]. On drier, less favorable sites it grows in open stands in
association with other plants [46]. In northwestern Montana tufted
hairgrass is a facultative wetland species [5].

Tufted hairgrass grows on a variety of soil types and textures. It is
found on sandy loam [45,79,98], sandy clayey loam [6], silty loam [47],
loam [6,47,64,66], loamy clay [6,66], and clay [6]. Tufted hairgrass
growth is rated fair on sandy loam and good on loam and clayey loam
[26,43]. It is found on gravel in Alaska [95], Michigan [98], and Utah
[64]. It occurs on granitic material in Idaho [32] and Wyoming [53].
It is found on peat in British Columbia [96] and on calcareous seeps in
Illinois [88]. It grows on pumice in Oregon [97] and on volcanic soils
in Wyoming [53].

Tufted hairgrass is adapted to cool, acid locations [68] but it also
grows on somewhat alkaline soils [43,77]. It has been found on soils
varying from pH 3.3 on mine tailings in Ontario [43] to pH 8.4 in
central Idaho [77]. However, it generally grows best in soils with pH
5.2 to 5.5 [54]. Tufted hairgrass will tolerate some saline water
[48,71]; along the north-central Oregon coast, tufted hairgrass occurs
in high saltmarsh that is very occasionally flooded by salt water
during the summer growing season [31]. Some tufted hairgrass
populations are adapted to growing on spoils with elevated levels of
heavy metals [43].

In the western United States tufted hairgrass reaches its greatest
development at high elevations, where it becomes a nearly ubiquitous
floral component of most plant communities above treeline [10]. Tufted
hairgrass dominates moist areas of the alpine tundra of the Rocky
Mountains, where it occurs along soil moisture gradients from the middle
of lee slopes with early melting snowdrifts to the bottoms of lee slopes
with very wet meadows [34].

Tufted hairgrass is reported at the following elevations:

                       Feet             Meters

     Arizona       8,800- 9,500       2,680-2,900   [30,56]
     California         less than 12,800            less than 3,900   [45,48,67,74]
     Colorado      5,000-14,000       1,500-4,300   [26,46,47]
     Montana       2,500-10,000         800-3,000   [19,26,73,76]
     Utah          4,500-12,500       1,400-3,800   [26,100]
     Wyoming       4,000-12,000       1,200-3,700   [26,39]

Broad scale impacts of plant response to fire ¹²

More info for the terms: association, cover, root crown, severity, wildfire

Wildfire Case StudyÂ—
Tufted hairgrass response was studied following a lightning-ignited fire in
Ellis Meadow, a 30-acre (12 ha) subalpine meadow within the Roaring
River drainage of Kings Canyon National Park, California, in the
southern Sierra Nevada. The prefire community was subalpine meadow vegetation
within forest dominated by Sierra lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta spp. murrayana).
The meadow community was dominated by beaked sedge (Carex rostrata), tufted
hairgrass (Deschampsia cespitosa), Idaho bentgrass (Agrostis
idahoensis), and Mexican rush (Juncus mexicanus). Other common
herbaceous species were primrose monkeyflower (Mimulus primuloides),
Parish's yampah (Perideridia parishii), small white violet (Viola
macloskeyi), and several species of fireweed (Epilobium spp.) [24,25].

The study site is at 9,154 feet (2,790 m) elevation. The area is a
generally flat, basin-type meadow. The meadow surface consists of
low-lying troughs between hummocks formed by the root crowns of tufted
grasses and sedges. An organic layer up to 12 inches (30 cm) deep
overlays a loamy sand soil. The water table usually remains within a
few inches of the surface throughout the summer. However, precipitation
had been 45 to 50 percent below the normal average of 41.1 inches (1,044
mm) for each of the 2 years before the fire. The summer of the fire was
very dry. The wildfire occurred in early August, and was light to severe [24,25].

On September 30, 1977, immediately following the fire, two permanent
transects were established on a severely burned portion of the meadow.
Severely burned sites were differentiated by the extent to which the
organic layer was consumed; meadow surfaces were lower in the more
severely burned areas than in other areas, and ash depth exceeded 0.8
inch (2 cm) [24,25].

A lightning storm in early July 1977 ignited several fires in the
vicinity of Ellis Meadow. These were allowed to burn, and fire reached
Ellis Meadow in early August. By late summer, large contiguous areas of
the sedge-tallgrass community within Ellis Meadow had burned. About 60
percent of the meadow had burned by the end of September, when autumn
precipitation extinguished the fire [24,25].

The fire smoldered where it was severe, spreading at a rate of less than
2 inches per minute (5 cm/min). In these areas the fire burned nearly
all the organic layer, including subsurface and aboveground organic
matter. Fire consumed some tufted hairgrass plants entirely by a
combination of surface and subsurface fire. In some cases subsurface
fire combined with sporadic surface flare-ups, resulting in nearly
complete consumption of the root mass and organic matter in the surface
soil layer while leaving portions of the aboveground vegetation intact [24,25].

Ash depth where present ranged from 0.4 to 8 inches (1-20 cm), averaging
3.5 inches (9 cm). Mean ash depths were significantly (p less than .05) greater
when charred vegetation remained at the surface in association with ash
than when only ash was present [24,25].

Where fire was of light to moderate severity, most of the dry
above-surface tufted hairgrass material and some of the green biomass
were burned. However, subsurface fire was light or absent and ash depth
rarely exceeded 0.8 inch (2 cm). A distinct pattern was observed on
hummocky microtopography. Where fires were of low severity, fire was
largely confined to the troughs between hummocks. Tufted hairgrass,
common on hummocks, was not seriously injured by these fires, and was
seldom observed to have suffered damage to the root crown even when the
tops were heavily burned [24,25].

Where fire was severe and smoldered for some time, both troughs and
hummocks were burned. Here fire burned nearly all of the organic layer,
including tufted hairgrass subsurface and aboveground matter, and tufted
hairgrass was killed. The surface of the meadow in these areas was
lowered between 4 and 10 inches (10-25 cm) relative to adjacent
vegetation.

During the final week of September or the first week of October each
year between 1978 and 1981 the two transects were sampled by measuring
the foliar cover of individual plant species [24,25].

Immediately after fire: 42.7 percent of all vegetation on the lengths
of the transects had been reduced to ash. Ash segments on the transects
included prefire spaces between root crowns as well as individual plants
consumed entirely by a combination of surface and subsurface fire. On
another 41.1 percent of the total transect lengths the root mass and
upper soil layer had been completely burned by subsurface fire, though
partially burned aboveground herbage remained. These transect sections
corresponded to the prefire root crowns of sedges, rushes, and tufted
grasses of which tufted hairgrass was a dominant. Only about 2.3
percent of the original vegetation survived on the lengths of the two
transects [24,25].

Postfire year 1: Tufted hairgrass was widely distributed throughout the
severely burned portions of the meadow; it was generally more abundant
than in the measured transects. Tufted hairgrass appeared to have
established from seeds and also reestablished vegetatively. In less
severely burned areas tufted hairgrass aboveground biomass and cover
appeared comparable to that on unburned sites, even where tops had been
charred or removed by fire [24,25].

Tufted hairgrass percent cover on transects over the 4 years following
fire was as follows [24,25]:

                          Percent Cover

              1978        1979        1980        1981

               0.2        11.1        18.5        17.8

The lack of prefire vegetation data prevents precise comparison, but
tufted hairgrass cover on the most severely burned portions of Ellis
Meadow seemed to be succeeding toward that which had been characteristic
of the prefire state [24,25].

Tufted hairgrass root crowns in subalpine meadows generally survive all
but very severe fires. Tufted hairgrass regenerates from the root
crowns and also from seed in the seedbank [24,25].

National nature serve conservation status ¹³

Canada

Rounded National Status Rank: N2 - Imperiled

Taxonomy ¹⁴

Comments: Deschampsia mackenzieana was considered distinct by Kartesz (1994), but is included in the synonymy of the widespread species D. caespitosa (cespitosa) by him in 1999.

Taxon biology ¹⁵

Dechampsia cespitosa is is distributed broadly including Russia, China, Japan, Korea, Arctic Europe and North America. The plant is found in moist meadows, river sand and gravel, among scrub, coastal prairies and other habitats.

With a common name of Tufted hairgrass, this perennial is densely tufted and can reach a height of one meter. Some Native American tribes utilized seeds from this species as a food source.

Sources and Credits

(c) Matt Lavin, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA), http://www.flickr.com/photos/plant_diversity/3988253348/
(c) anonymous, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC), http://www.biopix.com/PhotosMedium/JCS%20Deschampsia%20cespitosa%2018456.jpg
(c) Tom Reyes, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC-SA), https://calphotos.berkeley.edu/imgs/512x768/0000_0000/1114/1995.jpeg
(c) Keir Morse, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC-SA), https://calphotos.berkeley.edu/imgs/512x768/0000_0000/0208/0267.jpeg
(c) Keir Morse, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC-SA), https://calphotos.berkeley.edu/imgs/512x768/0000_0000/0208/0266.jpeg
(c) Keir Morse, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC-SA), https://calphotos.berkeley.edu/imgs/512x768/0000_0000/0208/0265.jpeg
(c) Wikipedia, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deschampsia_cespitosa
(c) NatureServe, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC), http://eol.org/data_objects/29041965
(c) Missouri Botanical Garden, 4344 Shaw Boulevard, St. Louis, MO, 63110 USA, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC-SA), http://eol.org/data_objects/5003201
(c) Missouri Botanical Garden, 4344 Shaw Boulevard, St. Louis, MO, 63110 USA, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC-SA), http://eol.org/data_objects/19820872
Public Domain, http://eol.org/data_objects/24631759
Public Domain, http://eol.org/data_objects/24631766
(c) NatureServe, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC), http://eol.org/data_objects/29041963
(c) NatureServe, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC), http://eol.org/data_objects/29041961
(c) Unknown, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC), http://eol.org/data_objects/7161656

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