Stipa lettermanii

Letterman's needle grass

Family: Poaceae · Type: perennial · Native

Letterman's needle grass is a California native perennial found in the Klamath Ranges, northern California Ranges, Sierra Nevada, San Bernardino Mountains, Peninsular Ranges, Great Basin, and desert mountains in meadows, dry slopes, sagebrush scrub, and conifer forests at elevations of 880 to 3,200 meters. Flowering from May to August, this grass produces delicate pale yellow to light green flowers in dense inflorescences 7 to 19 centimeters long. Growing with slender stems 15 to 90 centimeters tall, it forms tufted clumps with fine, narrow leaves less than 2 millimeters wide. Its leaves have glabrous sheaths and blade-like structures that emerge from the base of the plant. The distinctive feature of this grass is its twisted, persistent awn (12 to 25 millimeters long) that bends twice and remains attached to the seed after maturity.

Habitat: Uncommon. Meadows, dry slopes, sagebrush scrub, conifer forest, subalpine

Bloom period: May-Aug

Elevation: 880-3200 m

Bioregions: KR, CaR, n&ampc SN, SnBr, PR, GB, DMtns

California counties: San Bernardino, Placer, Mono, Riverside, Inyo, Alpine, Plumas, Humboldt, Butte, Glenn, Modoc, Yuba, Tuolumne, Mariposa

Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.