Cortaderia rudiuscula Stapf

• Authority

  Hitchcock, Albert S. 1927. The grasses of Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia. Contr. U. S. Natl. Herb. 24: i-xx, 291-556.

• Family

  Poaceae

• Scientific Name

  Cortaderia rudiuscula Stapf

• Description

  Description - A large reed with a great basal mass of long narrow blades as much as 3.5 long and mostly less than 1 cm. wide, firm and tough, very scabrous on the margins and under side of midrib, the flowering culm stout, 1 to 2 meters tail, the yellowish or purple-tinged panicle 30 to 60 cm. long, dense, but the branches drooping.

• Discussion

  This includes O. quila (Nees & Mey.) Stapf, as described by Stapf in the article cited above. The specific name, however, goes back to Arundo quila Mol.,18 a species of bamboo. Chusquca quila Kunth,10 also, is based on Arundo quila Mol. Cortadcria rudiuscula differs from C. selloana (Schult.) Aschers. & Graebn. (C. argentca Stapf) of Argentina and Chile in the looser, yellowish or purplish panicle, the panicle of the latter being dense, woolly, and silvery white. The rachilla of C. selloana is more slender, so that the spikelets appear more open and the florets more distant. Cortaderia selloana appears not to occur within our range.