Flora of North America species comparison

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Luziola

watergrass
Habit Plants perennial; aquatic, usually rooted, sometimes floating; stoloniferous, sometimes mat-forming; monoecious.
Culms

10-100+ cm, erect or prostrate, sometimes rooting at the nodes, branched, emergent or immersed.
Leaves

cauline;

sheaths open, not inflated or somewhat inflated;

ligules hyaline;

pseudopetioles present or absent;

blades flat, linear to lanceolate or narrowly elliptic, glabrous, pubescent, or scabrous.
Inflorescences

panicles, racemes, or spikes, exserted or enclosed, staminate and pistillate spikelets usually in separate inflorescences, pistillate inflorescences at the lower or middle nodes, staminate inflorescences usually terminal;

disarticulation below the spikelets.
Spikelets

unisexual, laterally compressed to subterete, with 1 floret.
Glumes

absent;

calluses glabrous;

lemmas and paleas subequal, ovate or lanceolate, membranous or hyaline, unawned;

lodicules 2.
Fruits

achenes, ovoid, ellipsoid, or subglobose, beaked by the persistent style bases;

pericarps shell-like, partially free from the seed, smooth or striate, crustaceous;

seeds ovoid to subglobose;

embryos basal;

hila linear, x = 12.
Staminate

lemmas and paleas obscurely few- to several-veined;

anthers 6-16.
Pistillate

lemmas 5-14-veined, margins not clasping the margins of the paleas, unawned;

paleas 3-10-veined;

styles 2, bases fused, stigmas laterally or terminally exserted, plumose.

Luziola
Distribution
from FNA
AL; AR; FL; GA; LA; MS; NC; SC; TX
[BONAP county map]
Discussion

Luziola is a genus of about 12 species that range from the southeastern United States to Argentina. Only L. fluitans is native to the Flora region; two other species have been introduced and are established. The species are emergent or immersed in shallow, fresh to brackish water.

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Key
1. Culms prostrate, usually immersed; leaves floating or streaming in currents, 1-5(8) cm long, usually more numerous towards the ends of the culms; pistillate inflorescences mostly included in the sheaths, only the stigmas visible
L. fluitans
1. Culms suberect to erect, from fully emergent to immersed; leaves not conspicuously floating or streaming, longer than 6 cm, basal or scattered along the culms; pistillate inflorescences all or mostly exserted, their branches and spikelets evident.
→ 2
2. Pistillate florets 3-5 mm long; achenes striate
L. bahiensis
2. Pistillate florets 2-2.5 mm long; achenes smooth
L. peruviana
Source FNA vol. 24, p. 54. Author: Edward E. Terrell;.
Parent taxa Poaceae > subfam. Ehrhartoideae > tribe Oryzeae
Subordinate taxa
L. bahiensis, L. fluitans, L. peruviana
Name authority Juss.
Web links 
Unless otherwise noted, all data comes from the online version of the Flora of North America, who have made most of their content available via a Creative Commons license (CC BY 4.0).



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