Common Name: RUSH FAMILY
Habit: Annual, perennial herb generally from rhizomes. Stem: round or flat. Leaf: generally basal; sheath margins fused, or overlapping and generally with 2 ear-like extensions at blade junction; blade round, flat, or vestigial, glabrous or margin hairy. Inflorescence: head-like clusters or flowers 1, variously arranged; bracts subtending inflorescence 2, generally leaf-like; bracts subtending inflorescence branches 1--2, reduced; bractlets subtending flowers generally 1--2, generally translucent. Flower: generally bisexual, radial; sepals and petals similar, persistent, scale-like, green to brown or +- purple-black; stamens generally 3 or 6, anthers linear, persistent; pistil 1, ovary superior, chambers generally 1 or 3, placentas 1 and basal or 3 and axile or parietal, stigmas generally > style. Fruit: capsule, loculicidal. Seed: 3--many, generally with white appendages on 1 or both ends.
Genera In Family: 7 genera, 440 species: temperate, arctic, and tropical mountains. Note: Flowers late spring to early fall.
eFlora Treatment Author: Peter F. Zika, except as noted
Scientific Editor: Douglas H. Goldman, Bruce G. Baldwin.

Common Name: HAIRY WOOD RUSH
Habit: Perennial herb, cespitose or rhizomed, rhizome inconspicuous or not, ascending to vertical, or horizontal. Stem: cylindric, base bulb-like or not. Leaf: generally basal, cauline few; blades linear, flat or channeled, margins and sheath opening generally sparsely to densely long-soft-hairy (glabrous in L. divaricata). Inflorescence: panicles of 1--many flowers per branch, or head-like to ovoid, or umbels of dense cylindric spikes; lower bract leaf-like at base, membranous distally, bracts subtending branches, bractlets subtending flowers 1--3, margins ciliate or not, jagged to entire. Flower: perianth parts 6, pale brown to black; stamens 6; pistil chamber 1, placenta basal. Fruit: opening with 3 valves. Seed: 3, ellipsoid to broadly oblong or ovoid, ridged on 1 side, occasionally attached to placenta by tuft of hairs, generally with dull white fleshy appendage at tip.
Etymology: (Latin: a small light, shiny; Italian: firefly -- some plants sparkling with dew or hairs) Note: Measure seed length when dry, including appendage, but not hair tuft. When well-developed, fleshy seed appendage (aril, or caruncle) attracts ants to aid dispersal. As in Carex and Juncus, collections in flower or lacking carefully extracted basal parts difficult to identify accurately. Stamen, stigma, and style measurements are for fruiting plants; stigma and style lengths measured separately; gather samples with ripe capsules and mature seeds. Reports of Luzula campestris (L.) DC. in strict sense, L. congesta (Thuill.) Lej., L. glabrata (Hoppe) Desv., L. multiflora (Ehrh.) Lej. in strict sense, and L. sudetica (Willd.) Schult. in CA not supported by specimens.
eFlora Treatment Author: Jan Kirschner & Peter Zika
Reference: Zika et al. 2015 Phytotaxa 192:201--229

Habit: Cespitose, 10--78 cm, rhizomes 0 or short, sturdy, +- vertical. Leaf: flat, ciliate, tip thickened and generally blunt or rounded (at 10× magnification); basal leaves 7--36 cm, 3.5--6 mm wide; cauline 1--5, 6--33 cm, 2--6 mm wide. Inflorescence: variable, 1 erect head, sometimes lobed, to umbels of spikes, clusters dense distally, often with proximal flowers remote and basal part of spikes loose; lower bract < or > inflorescence. Flower: perianth parts 2--3.6(4.2) mm, subequal, lanceolate, acuminate, pale- to mid-brown. Fruit: obovoid-3-angled, < perianth. Seed: seeds ellipsoid to narrowly ovoid; appendage 0.15--0.7 mm. Chromosomes: 2n=12,24,36.
Note: The two varieties easily recognized in their morphological extremes by inflorescence being branched or not. Significance of this character is questionable; one plant can have branched and unbranched inflorescences. Recent chromosome counts of the two varieties show overlapping numbers. Taxonomy here follows Kirschner et al. (2002), but may change with more study. Some related species, such as L. campestris (L.) DC., L. cascadensis, L. congesta (Thuill.) Lej., and L. multiflora (Ehrh.) Lej., show similarly variable inflorescence branching.
Reference: Kirschner et al. 2002 Pp. i-vii, 1--237 in Juncaceae 1: Rostkovia to Luzula, Species Plantarum: Flora of the World Part 6