''Achnatherum diegoense'' is a species of

grass Poaceae () or Gramineae () is a large and nearly ubiquitous family of monocotyledonous flowering plants commonly known as grasses. It includes the cereal grasses, bamboos and the grasses of natural grassland and species cultivated in lawns a ...

known by the common name San Diego needlegrass. It is native to southern

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

, where it is known from

San Diego San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the eighth most populous city in the United State ...

and Ventura Counties and the

Channel Islands The Channel Islands ( nrf, Îles d'la Manche; french: îles Anglo-Normandes or ''îles de la Manche'') are an archipelago in the English Channel, off the French coast of Normandy. They include two Crown Dependencies: the Bailiwick of Jersey, ...

, and

Baja California Baja California (; 'Lower California'), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Baja California ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Baja California), is a state in Mexico. It is the northernmost and westernmost of the 32 federal entities of Mex ...

Description

It is a resident of chaparral and

coastal sage scrub Coastal sage scrub, also known as coastal scrub, CSS, or soft chaparral, is a low scrubland plant community of the California coastal sage and chaparral subecoregion, found in coastal California and northwestern coastal Baja California. It is ...

ecosystems below 350 feet in elevation, especially near streams. This is a bunching perennial grass reaching heights between 110 and 140 centimeters. The

inflorescence An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a Plant stem, stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches. Morphology (biology), Morphologically, it is the modified part of the shoot of sperma ...

is up to about 25 centimeters long. The hairy spikelet is about a centimeter long not counting the long awn, which can be up to 5 centimeters long and has two distinct kinks.

References

External links

Jepson Manual TreatmentUSDA Plants ProfileGrass Manual TreatmentPhoto gallery
diegoense Bunchgrasses of North America Grasses of Mexico Native grasses of California Flora of Baja California Flora of California Flora of the Cascade Range Flora of the Klamath Mountains Flora of the Sierra Nevada (United States) Natural history of the California chaparral and woodlands Natural history of the California Coast Ranges Natural history of the Channel Islands of California Natural history of the Peninsular Ranges Natural history of the San Francisco Bay Area Natural history of the Transverse Ranges Plants described in 1940 {{Pooideae-stub