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Aquatic and Wetland Vascular Plants of the Northern Great Plains

61. Juncaceae, the Rush Family

1. Juncus L. -- Rush

9. Juncus ensifolius Wikst.

Rhizomatous perennial 1.5-6 dm tall; culms single or loosely clustered. Leaves 2-4 per culm, the blade folded along the midrib with the margins united, thus laterally flattened and equitant (with one edge toward the culm), 1.5-6 mm wide, incompletely cross-septate; sheaths green or reddish, with broad scarious margins, these often prolonged as low rounded auricles to 0.5 mm long. Inflorescence short to oblong, usually few-branched with the branches erect or nearly so; glomerules (1)2-several (seldom more), hemispheric to subglobose, 5- to many-flowered, to ca. 1 cm across. Flowers dark brown, 3-4 mm long; tepals lanceolate, the outer tepals acuminate, sharp-pointed, the inner ones shorter, acute, scarious-margined; stamens 6(3). Capsules oblong, 1-locular, rounded to the short beak, shorter than to exceeding the tepals; seeds ellipsoid to fusiform, 0.4-0.6 mm long and apiculate at both ends, or sometimes to 1 mm long with a taillike appendage at one or both ends. Jul--Sep. Margins of springs, streams, ponds and in seepage areas at moderate to high elevations; occasional in the Black Hills and with one record from Custer Co., MT; (SD and MT to AK, s to NM, AZ and CA, also Que. and Ont.).

Our plants, with usually 6 stamens and the anthers about equaling the filaments, are assigned to var. montanus (Engelm.) C. L. Hitchc.

Previous Section -- Juncus dudleyi Wieg. -- Dudley's rush
Return to Family -- Juncaceae - The Rush Family
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