Festuca tristis Krylov & Ivanitzk.

Plant densely tufted; shoots intravaginal. Culms 30–50 cm tall. Leaf sheaths glabrous or lower sparsely pubescent; leaf blades usually involute, occasionally flat, stiff, 4–25 cm × 0.5–0.8 mm, veins 5–7, outer surface scabrid; adaxial to abaxial sclerenchyma strands absent, abaxial sclerenchyma in narrow discrete strands; ligule 0.1–0.3 mm, margin ciliate. Panicle loose, open, 7–13 cm; branches 2–5 cm, upper single, lower paired, naked below middle. Spikelets 8–12 mm, purplish or brown, shiny; florets 3–4; glumes smooth, margins membranous, rarely ciliolate; lower glume narrowly lanceolate, 4.5–5.5 mm; upper glume broadly lanceolate, 5.7–6.7 mm; rachilla internodes 1.2–1.5 mm; lemmas 6–7 mm, punctiform or scabrid except toward base, conspicuously veined, margins broad, hyaline, apex entire; awns (0.3–)1–2 mm; palea keels scaberulous. Anthers 3–3.6 mm. Ovary apex moderately hairy. Fl. and fr. Jul–Sep.

Xinjiang [E Kazakhstan (Tarbagatai Mountains), Mongolia, Russia (W Siberia)].

Alpine grasslands, rocky slopes; 2800–4600 m.