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.
Species In Genus: 125 species: worldwide.
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.
Jepson eFlora Author: Jan Kirschner & Peter Zika
Reference: Zika et al. 2015 Phytotaxa 192:201--229
Index of California Plant Names (ICPN; linked via the Jepson Online Interchange)Key to Luzula
Previous taxon: Juncus xiphioidesNext taxon: Luzula cascadensis
