Classification
Class
Magnoliopsida Brongn.
Order
Poales Small
Family
Juncaceae Juss.
 Subordinate Taxa
 Nomenclature
Scientific Name:
Luzula DC. in Candolle, Fl. Franç. (ed. 3), 158 (1805)
Synonymy:
  • = Luzula picta var. cheesemanii Buchenau, Bot. Jahrb. Syst. 12: 147 (1890) – as cheesemani
Vernacular Name(s):
Woodrush
 Description

Perennial grass-like herbs, tufted, or stoloniferous or rhizomatous, or cushion-forming. Stems glabrous, terete, erect, often with 1–2 cauline leaves. Leaves flat or channelled, almost glabrous to densely villous along margin, sheaths without auricles. Inflorescence a terminal cyme, congested to a single head, or much-branched, branches unequal with flowers clustered at tips; subtending bracts leaf-like. Flowers hermaphrodite; bracts and bractlets silver or light brown, membranous, ovate, margins ± lacerate, ± villous. Tepals 6, usually equal in length, with or without membranous margins. Stamens 3, or 6. Ovary 1-locular. Seeds 3, with a white basal caruncle (tail).

[From: Healy and Edgar (1980) Flora of New Zealand. Volume 3.]

 Biostatus
Indigenous (Non-endemic)
Number of species in New Zealand within Luzula DC.
CategoryNumber
Indigenous (Endemic)11
Indigenous (Non-endemic)1
Exotic: Fully Naturalised4
Exotic: Casual1
Total17
 Bibliography
Buchenau, F. 1890: Monographia Juncacearum. Botanische Jahrbücher für Systematik, Pflanzengeschichte und Pflanzengeographie 12: 1–495.
Candolle, A.P. de. 1805: Flore Française. Vol. 3. Edition 3. Desray, Paris.
Edgar, E. 1966: Luzula in New Zealand. New Zealand Journal of Botany 4: 159–184. [as Luzula picta var. cheesemanii Buchenau]
Mabberley, D.J. 2008: Mabberley's plant book, a portable dictionary of plants, their classification and uses. Edition 3. Cambridge University Press.