Stipa richteriana Kar. & Kir., 1841

Nobis, Marcin, Nobis, Agnieszka, Klichowska, Ewelina, Nowak, Arkadiusz, Nowak, Sylwia & Gudkova, Polina D., 2016, Stipa dickorei sp. nov. (Poaceae), three new records and a checklist of feather grasses of China, Phytotaxa 267 (1), pp. 29-39 : 34

Stipa richteriana Kar. & Kir.

Type:―Eastern KAZAKHSTAN. In lapidosis mont. Arganty, 1840, Karelin 907 (lectotype selected by Tzvelev 1976, LE!)

The species is widely distributed in central Asia, mainly in Kazakhstan, western China, Uzbekistan and Afghanistan ( Pazij 1968, Tzvelev 1968, 1976, Freitag 1985). The main morphological characters of this taxon include: abaxial surface of vegetative leaves glabrous and adaxial surface shortly pilose with hairs up to 0.1 mm long, spikelets 10–14 mm long, anthecium 5.5–7.5 mm long, callus 0.5–1.0 mm long, awn 4–8 cm long, seta straight with hairs 0.3–0.8 mm long. The species can be confused with Stipa bungeana Trinius (1835: 144) and S. breviflora Grisebach (1868: 82) . However, it clearly differs from S. bungeana by its pilose vs. scabrous awn, shorter callus (0.5–1.0 vs. 1–1.5 mm long) as well as different lemma indumentum. Stipa richteriana differs from S. breviflora by shorter awns (up to 8 vs. over 9 cm long) and shorter hairs on seta (0.3–0.8 vs. 1–2 mm long).

Specimens studied:— CHINA. Xinjiang: northern slope of Eastern Tian-Shan Mts, Manas River valley , 15–20 km higher from Manas city, semidesert, 6 June 1957, Bot-expedition 644 (LE!) ; northern slope of Eastern Tian-Shan Mts, foreland, by the road from Tsitai (Guchen), 20 km from Urumchi , steppe-desert, 24 September 1957, Bot-expedition 2293 (LE!) ; Mongolian Altai, Koktogai settl., 7 June 1959, Bot-expedition 10409 (LE!) .