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Poaceae family

Fescue Festuca edlundiae

Native

Fescue is a perennial grass native to Alaska, Canada, and Greenland.

More about this plant

Festuca edlundiae, commonly known as Edlund's fescue, is a native, perennial, tufted grass of the High Arctic. It occurs in Alaska, the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, northern Greenland, far eastern Arctic Russia, and Svalbard. The specific epithet honours Canadian botanist Sylvia Edlund. The species was first formally described in 1995 by Susan Aiken, Laurie Consaul, and Leonard Lefkovitch. Wikipedia →

Growing & care

USDA PLANTS · TRY
Size & form
Sources · Size & form
USDA PLANTS — Lifespan
TRY Plant Trait Database (CC BY 4.0) — Foliage
Lifespan
Perennial
Foliage
Broadleaf
In the garden
Herb layer — Sits in the herb of a layered food forest or polyculture.Open guide →
derived roles
Species characteristics from USDA PLANTS (public domain) + TRY (CC BY) — general guidance, not a guarantee for your exact site. Deer "browsing" is documented palatability, not a deer-proof claim.

Wildlife & pollinators

How pollinator value is scored →
❧ Caterpillar hosts ~4 caterpillar species

Festuca supports ~4 caterpillar species.

Native butterfly & moth caterpillars are the base of the terrestrial food web — most songbirds rear their young almost entirely on them. As a host for native Lepidoptera this is a modest genus.

Recorded feeding on Festuca in North America, including:

Agriphila straminella · snout moth Apamea obscuroides · owlet moth Chrysoteuchia culmella · snout moth Chrysoteuchia topiaria · snout moth Coenonympha tullia · Common Ringlet Gynaephora groenlandica · tussock moth
+ 8 more species →
Hesperia comma · Silver-Spotted Skipper Hesperia lindseyi · Lindsey's Skipper Hesperia miriamae · skipper butterfly Hesperia nevada · Nevada Skipper Hesperia sassacus · Indian Skipper Oeneis alberta · Alberta Arctic Oeneis bore · brush-footed butterfly Oeneis polixenes · Polixenes Arctic
Keystone count (genus-level) from Warren II 2026 (CC0) · Tallamy host-use records. Named species (a documented Nearctic sample, not exhaustive) from NHM HOSTS (CC0).
Species thumbnails re-hosted from iNaturalist — Creative Commons, credited per image (hover for credit). Click any species to see it on iNaturalist. Not exhaustive; many taxa have no openly-licensed photo yet.
Sources for this entry (13) Open & cited
[01] Scientific name & family — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[02] Growth habit & duration — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[03] Native status & distribution — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[04] Common name — USDA PLANTS (via GBIF)
[05] Invasive / introduced status — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503) — native status
[07] Description — Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)
[08] Ecological value — Warren II 2026 (CC0) · Tallamy host-use counts
[09] Conservation rank — NatureServe Explorer (CC BY)
[11] Caterpillar host count — Warren II 2026 (Dryad, CC0) · Tallamy host-use counts
[12] Caterpillar species — NHM HOSTS (CC0)
[13] County range — GBIF Open Data — open-licensed occurrences (CC0/CC-BY) → county
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