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Festuca
Also called Fescues
Festuca is a large genus of tufted perennial or evergreen grasses, with several hundred species and a near-worldwide range. Most grown plants are cool-season lawn, pasture or ornamental grasses that need sun and good drainage.
Festuca (fescue) is a genus of flowering plants belonging to the grass family Poaceae (subfamily Pooideae). They are evergreen, herbaceous, or perennial, tufted grasses with a height range of 10–200 cm (4–79 in) and a cosmopolitan distribution, occurring on every continent except Antarctica. The genus is closely related to ryegrass (Lolium), and recent evidence from phylogenetic studies using DNA sequencing of plant mitochondrial DNA shows that the genus lacks monophyly. As a result, plant taxonomists have moved several species, including the forage grasses tall fescue and meadow fescue, from the genus Festuca into the genus Lolium or alternatively into the segregated genus Schedonorus.
Because the taxonomy is complex, scientists have not determined how many true species belong to the genus, but estimates range from more than 400 to over 640.
Some fescues are used as ornamental and turf grasses and as pasture and hay for livestock, being a highly nutritious stock feed. Festuca rubra and F. rubra subsp. commutata are used as lawn grasses, and these species, F. arundinacea and F. trachyphylla, are used in parks, deforested areas, and sports fields for land stabilization. F. saximontana and F. idahoensis are used as rangeland grasses for livestock, and fescues often provide good forage for native wildlife. F. ovina and its various subspecies are the most important grazing fescues for North America, and F. arundinacea is one of the most important hay and pasture grasses in Europe.
California fescue · Spiky Fescue · Blue Fescue · Idaho fescue · Sheep fescue · Lolium pratense · Fescue · Red fescue · Furrowed Fescue · Festuca incurva
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Festuca by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
