16. Juncus nodatus Coville (stout rush)
Pl.
94 j, k; Map 373
Aerial stems 50–120 cm tall, caespitose, lacking noticeable rhizomes. Leaves
with the auricles at the top of the sheaths 1.5–2.5 mm long, papery, rounded,
the leaf blades 10–39 cm long, 3–5 mm wide, tubular and hollow, circular in
cross-section, with cross-partitions at regular intervals. Basal leaves few,
usually 1 or 2 of them lacking a leaf blade. Leaves of the aerial stems 1–3.
Inflorescences diffuse panicles, the branches ascending to spreading, the
leaflike bract at the base shorter than the inflorescence. Flower clusters
50–200 or more per inflorescence, mostly wedge-shaped, each with 2–7(–10)
flowers. Flowers lacking a pair of closely subtending bracts. Perianth 1.2–2.8
mm long, the sepals about as long as the petals, linear-lanceolate, the tips
acuminate. Stamens 3 per flower. Fruits 2.1–2.8 mm long, about as long as the
perianth, narrowly ovate to elliptic in outline, the tip rounded to acute,
1-locular. Seeds 0.4–0.5 mm long, both ends with short, dark points.
May–August.
Scattered south of the Missouri River, mostly in the Mississippi Lowlands and
Unglaciated Plains Divisions (Indiana to Kansas south to Mississippi and
Texas). Wet depressions of mesic upland prairies, margins of ponds, sloughs,
and ditches, banks of slow-moving streams, and openings of bottomland forests;
also disturbed, wet, sandy areas.