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Info
Subfamily: Pooideae
Genus etymology: Festuca = "stem / straw" [Latin]
Species etymology: aloha = The authors state the name derives from the Kalalau Valley on Kaua'i where this was first found, as that name sounds similar to "aloha" but this etymology makes little sense in the eyes of this author
Photosynthetic type: C3 (cool season)
Nativity: endemic
Map
Inflorescence
image credit: Adam_Williams
image credit: Adam_Williams
image credit: Adam_Williams
image credit: Adam_Williams
image credit: Tim_KroessigPlant
image credit: Tim_Kroessig
image credit: Ken Wood
image credit: Tim_KroessigDescription
Plants perennial, cespitose, with extravaginal innovations; cataphylls conspicuous, brownish. Culms 45-70 cm tall, erect, slender (ca. 1 mm diam.), nodes 2-3, smooth and glabrous. Leaf sheath margins fused for 1-2 mm at base, overlapping more than ¥2 the length below, sparsely villose abaxially when young, becoming glabrous at maturity, purple-brownish at the base, greenish above, becoming fibrous in age at base; auricles absent; collars glabrous; ligules 1-1.5 mm long, scarious, glabrous, brownish, apex obtuse, dentate-erose; leaf blades of vegetative shoots 22-33 cm x (1- )1.5- 1.7 mm, erect to pendant, flat with involute margins, glabrous and smooth abaxially, hirsute along protruding ribs adaxially, the hairs up to 0.1 mm long, cross section (Fig. 2) about 1 mm bearing 13-16(-20) larger vascular traces or veins, each with prominent ribs adaxially alternating with smaller ribs on the secondary and tertiary veins, sclerenchyma strands forming trabeculae or girders on most veins; leaf blades of culms about 22 cm x 2.4 mm, erect to pendant. Panicles 8-11 x 2.5-4 cm, erect, axis and peduncle smooth; loosely contracted with 34-66 spikelets, spikelets mostly at branch tips; panicle branches 2(3) per node, basal branches 4-6 cm and ca. 1/2 the length of panicle, angled, erect or ascending, smooth proximally to scabrous, angled dis- tally. Spikelets 8.2-13 mm x 3.5-6.0 mm, 4-6-flowered, broadly lanceolate, pale green, sometimes tinged with purple; pedicels (l-)1.5-3.5(-5) mm long; rachilla internodes 0.8-1.2 mm long, scabrous; glumes lanceolate, green, margins very narrowly scarious (<0.5 mm), apex acute; lower glumes (3.6-)3.9-4.2(-4.5) mm long, 1-veined; upper glumes 5.2-5.5(-6.0) mm long, 3-veined; lemmas 5.8-8.0 mm long, 5-veined, glabrous below, scabrous near the apex, green or tinged with purple at the apex, mucronate to awned, the muero or awn 0.5-1.1 mm long, scabrous; callus rounded, obliquely angled (to 45°), smooth to dorsally minutely scabrous at the apex; paleas longer or shorter than lemma, scabrous on and between keels; stamens 3, anthers 3.1-4.2 mm long; ovary densely hairy
(Description source: Catalán, P., Soreng, R. J., & Peterson, P. M. (2009). Festuca aloha and F. molokaiensis (Poaceae: Loliinae), two new species from Hawai'i. Journal of the Botanical Research Institute of Texas, 51-58. )