
Stipa lepida
NATIVE
Description (Jepson, PlantID.net)
- Monocotyledon
- Monocots are a major lineage of flowering plants; see family for general characteristics
- Grass Family (Poaceae)
- Perennial bunchgrass
- Open, nodding inflorescence (flower arrangement) develops many needle-like seedheads
- Wind pollinated
- Seeds have sharply-pointed tips and twice-bent awns (stiff, hair-like appendages), which twist into the ground as they dry, self-planting
- Height usually 1-2 ft.
Distribution
- Native to California
- Grows in chaparral, coastal sage scrub, and grasslands
- See Calflora for statewide observations of this plant
- Outside California, grows in Baja California, Mexico
- Grows at elevations to 4,600 ft.
Uses (San Mateo County Parks prohibits removal of any natural material)
- One of several grass seeds used by Native people as a food source
- Native people used grasses in many ways: lining cooking pits, stringing drying foods, and as flooring or bedding
Name Derivation
- Stipa (STY-pa) – from the Greek for “flax” or “fiber,” for the tufted flower clusters
- lepida (LEH-pid-a) – from the Latin for “elegant” or “graceful”
- Needle grass – awns (stiff, hair-like appendages) are long and fine, like a needle trailing a thread
Notes
- About 80% of California’s native grasses, including foothill needle grass, are perennials (Beidleman and Kozloff 2003)
- Native perennial bunchgrasses leave room for wildflowers to grow between clumps
- In contrast, non-native annual grasses often grow in thick carpets and can form an impenetrable thatch that chokes out other plants
- Native perennial bunchgrasses have deep roots
- Draw water and nutrients to the surface where they can be utilized by other vegetation
- In contrast, shallowly-rooted non-native annual grasses take resources from the soil surface (Heiple 2018)
- Act as highly effective carbon sinks
- The rate of carbon sequestration increases with soil depth
- Even when these grasses die, the carbon remains in the soil, providing resilience to climate change
- Provide erosion control
- Draw water and nutrients to the surface where they can be utilized by other vegetation
- Like other bunchgrasses, foothill needle grass is adapted to endure light grazing and defoliation by fire
- High-intensity, continuous grazing, especially in drought conditions, will kill it
- Grasses, oaks, and silk tassels are examples of plants at Edgewood that are wind pollinated
- About 12% of flowering plants and most conifers are wind-pollinated (US Forest Service)
- These plants do not waste energy on flower features that attract animal pollinators; instead, their flowers generally have these characteristics
- Small, petalless, and unscented, with muted colors
- No nectar
- Stamen (male flower part) and stigma (pollen-receiving part of the pistil/female structure) are exposed to air currents
- Male flowers produce a great deal of pollen, which is very small, dry, and easily airborne, as all allergy sufferers know!
- Some references classify needlegrasses in the genus Nassela
- Needle grasses “are the redwoods of the grass world” with life spans exceeding 100 years (Don Reese, a USDA soil conservationist, quoted in Wilson 2012)
ID Tips
- May be confused with purple needle grass (S. pulchra)
- Foothill needle grass
- Is shorter (1-2 ft.), with a finer, more delicate appearance
- Has awns (stiff, hair-like appendages) shorter than your little finger
- Tends to grow at the margins of woodlands and chaparral
- Purple needle grass
- Is taller (2-3 ft.), with a coarser, more robust appearance
- Has awns longer than your little finger
- Tends to grow in open grassland
- Foothill needle grass
At Edgewood
- Widespread in chaparral and scrub; look for it at the sloping margins of grasslands and woodlands, often in part shade
- See iNaturalist for observations of this plant
- Flowers April – June
Specific References
Beidleman, L.H. and Kozloff, E.N. 2003. Plants of the San Francisco Bay Region: Mendocino to Monterey. University of California, Berkeley.
Minnesota Board of Water and Soil Resources. 2019. Carbon Sequestration in Grasslands.
US Forest Service. Celebrating Flowers: Wind and Water Pollination. United States Department of Agriculture.
Wilson, B. 2012. Stipa lepida, Foothill Stipa. Las Pilitas Native Plant Nursery.