Stipa webberi

Webber's needle grass

Family: Poaceae · Type: perennial · Native

Webber's needle grass is a California native perennial found in the northern and central Sierra Nevada Mountains, Modoc Plateau, and White and Inyo Mountains in dry, open flats and rocky slopes with sagebrush at elevations of 1,450 to 3,500 meters. Flowering from May to July, this grass produces delicate, pale tan to light green spikelets with narrow, dense clusters. Growing with slender stems 12 to 35 centimeters tall, it forms compact tufts with fine, inrolled leaf blades less than 1.5 millimeters wide. Its leaves have glabrous proximal sheaths and narrow, tightly rolled blades that create a fine, dense appearance. The distinctive awned lemmas are densely hairy, with straight to slightly bent awns 4 to 11 millimeters long that easily detach when mature.

Habitat: Dry, open flats, rocky slopes, generally with sagebrush

Bloom period: May-Jul

Elevation: 1450-3500 m

Bioregions: CaRH, n&ampc SNH, MP, W&ampI

California counties: Nevada, Mono, Alpine, Lassen, Plumas

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