This section is from the book "An Illustrated Flora Of The Northern United States, Canada And The British Possessions Vol1", by Nathaniel Lord Britton, Addison Brown. Also available from Amazon: An Illustrated Flora of the Northern United States, Canada and the British Possessions. 3 Volume Set..
A low annual tufted grass, with flat leaf-blades and spike-like panicles. Spikelets l-flowered; scales 3; the 2 outer empty, minute, the first often wanting; the third scale thin-membranous, keeled. Palet somewhat shorter, 2-keeled. Stamen 1, rarely 2 or 3. Styles short, distinct. Stigmas plumose. Grain oblong, enclosed in the scale and palet, which readily split and allow it to drop out. [In honor of John Constantine Phipps, 1744-1792, Arctic navigator.]
A monotypic genus of the arctic regions.
Fig. 463
Agrostis algida Solander, in Phipps' Voy. 200. 1810. Phippsia algida R. Br. Suppl. App. Parry's Voy. 285. 1824.
Smooth and glabrous throughout, culms 1'-5' tall, erect, simple; ligule 1/2" long; blades 1' in length or less, 1/4"-1" wide, obtuse; panicle 1/4'-1 1/2' in length, contracted; branches 1/4'-3/4' long, erect or appressed; spikelets 1/2"-3/4" long; outer scales minute, unequal, acutish, the first often wanting; third scale broad, 1-nerved, obtuse, or sub-truncate and somewhat erose, the palet about two-thirds as long, broad, 2-keeled, erose-truncate.
Arctic and alpine regions of both the Old World and the New. Summer.
 
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