Family: Poaceae |
Edward E. Terrell Kunzer and Bodle (2008) reported finding a fourth species of Luziola, L. subintegra, in Florida. This treatment has been amended to reflect their discovery. Plants perennial; aquatic, usually rooted, sometimes floating; stoloniferous, sometimes mat-forming; monoecious. Culms 10–100+ cm, erect or prostrate, sometimes rooting at the nodes, branched, emergent or immersed. Leaves cauline; sheaths open, not inflated or somewhat inflated; ligules hyaline; pseudopetioles present or absent; blades flat, linear to lanceolate or narrowly elliptic, glabrous, pubescent, or scabrous. Inflorescences panicles, racemes, or spikes, exserted or enclosed, staminate and pistillate spikelets usually in separate inflorescences, pistillate inflorescences at the lower or middle nodes, staminate inflorescences usually terminal; disarticulationbelow the spikelets. Spikelets unisexual, laterally compressed to subterete, with 1 floret. Glumes absent; calluses glabrous; lemmas and paleas subequal, ovate or lanceolate, membranous or hyaline, unawned; lodicules 2. Staminate lemmas and paleas obscurely few- to several-veined; anthers 6–16. Pistillate lemmas 5–14-veined, margins not clasping the margins of the paleas, unawned; paleas 3–10-veined; styles 2, bases fused, stigmas laterally or terminally exserted, plumose. Fruits achenes, ovoid, ellipsoid, or subglobose, beaked by the persistent style bases; pericarps shell-like, partially free from the seed, smooth or striate, crustaceous; seeds ovoid to subglobose; embryos basal; hila linear. x = 12. Name modified from Luzula, a genus of the Juncaceae. Luziola is a genus of nine species that range from the southeastern United States to Argentina. Only L. fluitans is native to the Flora region; three other species have been introduced and are established. The species are emergent or immersed in shallow, fresh to brackish water. The revision by Martinez-y-Peres et al. (2008) cited below has not been incorporated into this account. It does not appear to differ in the interpretation of the four species treated here, but it does offer considerable additional information about these species and those the grow outside the United States. SELECTED REFERENCES Anderson, L.C. and D.W. Hall. 1993. Luziola bahiensis (Poaceae): New to Florida. Sida 15:619–622; Kunzer, J.M. and M.J. Bodle. 2008. Luziola subintegra (Poaceae): Oryzeae), new to Florida and te United States. Journal of the Botanical Research Institute of Texas 2: 633-636; Martinez-y-Perez, J.L., T. Mejia-Saules, and V. Sosa. (2008), A taxonomic revision of Luziola (Poaceae: Oryzeae). Systematic botany 33:702-718; Pohl, R.W. and G. Davidse. 2001. Luziola. Pp. 2072–2073 in W.D. Stevens, C.U. Ulloa, A. Pool, and M. Montiel (eds.). Flora de Nicaragua, Vol. 3: Angiosperms (Pandanaceae–Zygophyllaceae). Missouri Botanical Garden Press, St. Louis, Missouri, U.S.A. 2666 pp. [for vols. 1–3]; Swallen, J.R. 1965. The grass genus Luziola. Ann. Missouri Bot. Gard. 52:472–475; Terrell, E.E. and H. Robinson. 1974. Luziolinae, a new subtribe of oryzoid grasses. Bull. Torrey Bot. Club 101:235–245. |