Juncus stygius

Stems 1-3.5 dm, solitary or few together, from slender rhizomes; lvs 1-3, basal, or one cauline above the middle; blades very narrow; sheaths firm, usually with slightly prolonged auricles; invol lf erect, 1-2 cm; infl 1(2), compact, 1-4-fld, 1 cm; tep with broad scarious margins, subequal, 4.3-6.2 mm; sep lance-subulate, the pet wider and obtusish; stamens 6, nearly as long as the tep, the anthers much shorter than the filaments; fr ellipsoid, 6-8.5 mm, conspicuously mucronate, much exceeding the tep; seeds 2-3 mm, with a thick pale appendage at each end about as long as the body. Bogs, marshes, and shallow pools; interruptedly circumboreal, in our range extending s. to the mts. of N. Engl. and N.Y. and n. Wis. and n. Minn. Our plants are var. americanus Buchenau.

Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.

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