Festuca halleri

Festuca halleri, Haller's fescue, is a densely tufted, glabrous perennial grass of the family Poaceae native to the alpine zone of the central and southern European mountains, including the Alps, Pyrenees, Carpathians, Apennines and the mountains of the Balkan Peninsula, where it grows on acidic, siliceous soils in open alpine grasslands, ridge crests, stony pastures and wind-exposed snow-free slopes above the treeline. It forms compact, low cushions 10-25 cm tall, with very narrow, rigid, bristle-like rolled leaves only 0.4-0.8 mm in diameter that arise from densely clustered, fibrous sheaths at the base of the tussock. The slender flowering culms are erect, smooth and bear a few short stem leaves. The inflorescence is a contracted, narrowly oblong panicle 2-6 cm long with short, appressed branches and few-flowered spikelets 5-8 mm long containing 3-5 florets, the lemmas violet-tinged, awned with awns of 1-3 mm. It is an important component of acidic alpine sward communities and is sometimes used as an indicator species in alpine vegetation surveys.