Hairy wood-rush

 

Scientific Name: Luzula pilosa (L.)

Family: Juncaceae

 

MORPHOLOGY

 

Habit and Size: Perennial herbaceous plant, reaching heights between 20 and 40 cm.

 

Stems: Slender erect stem.

 

Leaves: Basal leaves reduced to reddish sheaths; flat and parallel-veined, 7-10 mm wide, densely hairy, becoming dry at maturity.

 

Flowers: The inflorescence is a spike with solitary spaced flowers; branches with a curved appendix and a bract surpassing the spike. Actinomorphic flowers; the perianth is reddish or brown, consisting of 3 outer and 3 inner tepals (3 mm); stamens 6 shorter than the tepals. Blooms from April to July.

 

Fruits and Seeds: The fruit is a loculicidal capsule, pyriform, yellowish.

 

DISTRIBUTION AND HABITAT

 

Found throughout central and northern Italy and in Sardinia in woods, growing between 0 and over 1,200 m, reaching up to 1,900 m.

 

Photo: Licensed for free use by Saxifraga and Peter Meininger, Hans Dekker, Dirk Hilbers, Willem van Kruijsbergen.