Luzula wahlenbergii |
Luzula |
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Wahlenberg's wood rush |
hairy wood rush, wood rush |
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Habit | Herbs, perennial, usually cespitose, often with short, mostly vertical to running rhizomes and/or (less commonly) stolons. | |||||||||
Rhizomes | short. |
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Culms | cespitose, 15–30(–35) cm. |
round. |
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Cataphylls | absent. |
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Leaves | sheath throat acutely angled, pilose; basal leaf blade 5–10 cm × 3–8 mm, apex short acuminate, mostly glabrous; cauline leaves (1–)2–4, 3–5 cm × 2–4 mm. |
sheaths closed, without auricles at throat (junction with blade), usually pilose; blade flat or channeled, never septate, margins with long, soft, multicellular hairs, apex often thickened (callous), veins commonly indistinct. |
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Inflorescences | anthelate, few flowered; main branches generally 2–4, spreading less than 90°, lax, usually arching; proximal inflorescence bract 1 cm or less; bracts and bracteoles brown; margins with long curly cilia. |
terminal; flowers inserted individually or in dense clusters (glomerules) variously arranged; bracts subtending inflorescence (proximal inflorescence bracts) 2, mostly leaflike; bracts subtending inflorescence branches 1–2, reduced; bracteoles subtending flowers 2–3. |
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Flowers | solitary on short pedicels; tepals dark purplish brown (margins finely lacerate toward apex), 2–2.5 mm, margins finely lacerate toward apex, apex acute, not reflexed; anthers ± equaling filament length; stigmas 2 times style length. |
tepals 6, in 2 whorls; stamens 6. |
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Capsules | dark brown, less than 2.5 mm, slightly longer than tepals; beak absent. |
1-locular, generally globose; beak often formed by persistent style base. |
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Seeds | dark reddish brown, cylindric, 1.2–1.6 mm; caruncle essentially absent. |
3, globose to ovoid, base often with tuft of fibrous hairs (vestige of funiculus); nutritive appendage from outer seed coat (caruncle) often present, white, barely visible to ± equaling seed body. |
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x | = 6. |
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2n | = 24. |
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Luzula wahlenbergii |
Luzula |
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Phenology | Flowering and fruiting late summer. | |||||||||
Habitat | Wet mossy arctic and alpine tundra, lake shores, alluvial rivers, shores of alpine creeks, gneissic seashores | |||||||||
Elevation | 40–600 m (100–2000 ft) | |||||||||
Distribution |
AK; BC; MB; NT; NU; QC; YT; Greenland; Eurasia |
Temperate and arctic regions worldwide; tropical mountains |
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Discussion | The leaves of Luzula are primarily basal; cauline leaves are usually reduced. Luzula species have diffuse centromeres and small chromosomes. That has resulted in much confusion in interpretation and reporting of chromosome counts. No attempt has been made to include reported counts that could not reasonably be verified by the author. Excluded species: Luzula sudetica (Willdenow) de Candolle. Although reports of this European species appear frequently in the North American literature, I have seen no specimens that confirm its presence. No chromosome counts are published for North American material. Since this species has a distinct cytotype, 2n = 48 (H. Nordenskiöld 1956), it should not be difficult to verify on this basis. Species ca. 108 (23 in the flora). (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
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Key |
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Source | FNA vol. 22. | FNA vol. 22, p. 255. | ||||||||
Parent taxa | Juncaceae > Luzula > subg. Anthelaea | Juncaceae | ||||||||
Sibling taxa | ||||||||||
Subordinate taxa | ||||||||||
Synonyms | Juncoides | |||||||||
Name authority | Ruprecht: Fl. Samojed. Cisural. 58. (1845) | de Candolle: in J. Lamarck and A. P. de Candolle, Fl. France, ed. 3 1: 198; 3: 158. (1805) | ||||||||
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