Luzula campestris

Rhizomes conspicuous. Stolons short, slender. Culms not cespitose, decumbent, 10--20 cm. Leaves: basal leaves few, 2.5--15 cm x 4 mm, apex callous, pilose. Inflorescences racemose; glomerules 2--6, central glomerules sessile or all congested, not cylindric; peduncles straight, divergent as much as 90°, to 3 cm; proximal inflorescence bract dark, often purplish, leaflike. Flowers: tepals dark reddish, shining, with wide clear margins and apex, (apex acuminate, midrib extending as awned tip), 3--3.5 mm; outer and inner whorls equal; anthers ca. 2--6 times filament length; stigmas ± equal to style. Capsules brown, shining, (usually lighter than tepals), conspicuously shorter than to nearly equal to tepals; (beak obvious). Seeds reddish, globose, 1--1.3 mm; caruncle to 1/2 seed length. 2n = 12.

Flowering and fruiting summer. Sunny clearingsHabitat--; 500--900 melevation--; introduced; Nfld. and Labr. (Nfld.).

Luzula campestris may occur rarely elsewhere in Canada and the United States in lawns and cleared places (collected in Massachusetts in the 1920s). A common European species, the name is used in our floras for almost every species of the 'multiflora--campestris' complex.

Plants only loosely cespitose, with short but evident rhizomes or stolons; anthers mostly 1-1.5 mm long and 2-4 times as long as the filament; seed-body globular; 2n=12; otherwise much like no. 5 [Luzula multiflora (Retz.) Lej.]. Native of Europe, casually intr. in disturbed habitats at least in Mass. and perhaps elsewhere.

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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