Rush Family

Ralph E. Brooks;Steven E. Clemants; 

Herbs, perennial, occasionally annual, usually rhizomatous, orsometimes cespitose. Culms round or flat. Leaves mostly basal; sheath margins fused or overlapping, often with 2 earlike extensions (auricles) at blade junction; blade flat or round, glabrous or margins hairy. Inflorescences of headlike clusters or single flowers variously arranged; bracts subtending inflorescence 1 or more2, mostly leaflike; bracts subtending inflorescence branches 1--2, reduced; bracteoles subtending solitary flower 0--2, translucent, reduced. Flowers usually bisexual, radially symmetric; sepals and petals similar, persistent, green to brown or purplish black; stamens usually 3 or 6; anthers persistent, linear; pistils 1; ovaries superior, locules 1 or 3, placentas 1 and basal or 3 and axile or parietal; stigmas generally longer than styles. Fruits capsules, loculicidal. Seeds 3--many, often with white appendages on 1 or both ends.

Genera 9, species ca. 350 (2 genera, 1108 species in the flora): arctic and temperate regions, tropical mountains.

SELECTED REFERENCES

Buchenau, F. 1890. Monographia Juncacearum. Bot. Jahrb. Syst. 12: 1--495, 622--623, plates 1--3. Buchenau, F. 1906. Juncaceae. In: H. G. A. Engler, ed. 1900--1953. Das Pflanzenreich.... 107 vols. Berlin. Vol. 25[IV, 26], pp. 1--284.