Tufted, grass-like annual, or usually perennial herbs
Leaves flat, linear, with closed basal sheaths, inconspicuously silky-hairy
Inflorescence of dense, terminal spikes, heads or panicles, subtended by 1-few leaf-like bracts
Scapes long, furnished with reduced leaves or bracts, the upper subtending the inflorescence
Flowers each subtended by a small membranous ciliate bract
Perianth segments glumaceous
Ovary unilocular, with 3, nearly basal ovules
Capsule loculicidal
Seeds few, ovoid to globose, with or without an apical or basal appendage
x = 6 (3) (polyploidy)
Nomenclature:
Luzula DC.
Candolle: 158 (1805) name conserved
Brown: 27 (1897)
Carter: 7 (1966)
Friedrich-Holzhammer: 3 (1967)
Obermeyer: 91 (1985)
Distribution & Notes:
Global: Species ± 80, mostly north temperate regions, rare in southern hemisphere
Southern Africa: Species 1: Luzula africana Drège ex Steud., Namibia, KwaZulu-Natal, Lesotho and Eastern Cape, at fairly high altitudes
References:
BROWN, N.E. 1897. Juncaceae. Flora capensis 7
CANDOLLE, A.P. DE. 1805. In J.B.A.P.M. Lamarck & A.P. de Candolle, Flore française edn 3, 3
CARTER, S. 1966. Flora of tropical East Africa. Juncaceae
FRIEDRICH-HOLZHAMMER, M. 1967. Juncaceae. Prodomus einer Flora von Südwestafrika 156
OBERMEYER, A.A. 1985. Juncaceae. Flora of southern Africa 4,2
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Welcome to Biodiversity Advisor 2.0!
Biodiversity Advisor, developed by the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI) and its Data Partners, is a system that will provide integrated biodiversity information to a wide range of users who will have access to geospatial data, plant and animal species distribution data, ecosystem-level data, literature, images and metadata.
The integrated information comes from our much-loved Botanical Database of Southern Africa (BODATSA) also known as Plants of Southern Africa (POSA), Zoological Database of Southern Africa (ZODATSA), Biodiversity Geographic Information System (BGIS), SANBI's institutional repository (Opus) and others.
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