Flutter rush

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Flutter rush
Flutter rush (Juncus effusus)

Flutter rush ( Juncus effusus )

Systematics
Monocots
Commelinids
Order : Sweet grass (Poales)
Family : Rush Family (Juncaceae)
Genre : Rushes ( Juncus )
Type : Flutter rush
Scientific name
Juncus effusus
L.
illustration
The stem is grass green and shiny on the outside. The marrow inside is coherent.
Capsule fruits
fruit

The flutter rush or flutter ledge ( Juncus effusus ) belongs to the rush family (Juncaceae). It is a characteristic plant of moist to wet locations.

description

The flutter rush is a perennial herbaceous plant that reaches heights of 30 to 120 centimeters. It often forms large clumps . The stems grow rigidly upright. They are round and smooth, rarely slightly striped. Stems and leaves are grass-green and filled with a non-chambered pith. The stems have only one leaf protruding from the inflorescence. The basal leaf sheaths are reddish brown to blackish brown, not shiny and without any spreading .

The inflorescence is an apparently lateral spiral . This is loosely spread out or more rarely contracted head-like and multi-flowered. The three of the six outer between 1.5 and 2.5 millimeters long tepals are slightly longer than the inner ones. They are greenish with a broad skin edge, egg-shaped and pointed and always shorter than the fruit. The single flowers usually only have three stamens (stamen), rarely six. These are shorter than the stamens (filaments). The three scars stand upright. The glossy brown capsule fruit is triangular, somewhat wider at the top and sunk at the top. The stylus sits in this recess. The seeds are small and light red-brown.

The flowering period of the flutter rush extends from June to August.

The chromosome number of the species is 2n = 42 or 40.

ecology

Grassland with Juncus groves

The flutter rush is an evergreen clump plant and a swamp plant with a long, creeping rhizome . Their leaves are reduced. The photosynthesis takes place in the thick mm to 6, rounded stems. All parts of the plant are equipped with a white ventilation tissue, the so-called aerenchyma , which consists of dead, star-shaped cells and can be interpreted as an adaptation to oxygen-poor soils. After removing the bark of the stem, the foam-rubber-like ventilation tissue, also known as the “marrow”, can be easily pushed out with the fingernail. The weakly feminine flowers open simultaneously in "pulses". The flowering period extends from June to August. The flowers are pollinated by the wind ( anemophilia ).

The floriferous spirals overwinter. Because the stem-like bracts continue directly from the stem, the inflorescence appears to be sideways.

The fruits are columnar capsules and act as wind and animal spreaders. The tiny seeds are spread out as granular fliers and, since they adhere well when wet, also as sticky ones; they are light germs .

Vegetative reproduction occurs through branching of the creeping rhizome.

As a half-light to full-light plant, the flutter rush does not tolerate any shade. Their ecological focus is on moist, acidic, nitrogen-poor to moderately nitrogen-rich soils. It is encouraged by grazing in wet grassland, as it is reluctantly eaten by cattle and can quickly populate areas that have become devoid of vegetation. Due to its high dispersal force and competitiveness compared to other grassland species, it can develop species-poor populations and is therefore considered to be "pasture weeds". The clumps protruding from the grazed grassland are characteristic. The rush plant is characteristic of the plant community of the rush willow ( Epilobio-Juncetum effusi ), a community on sites that are densely populated by cattle treads, wet or oozing, and rich in nutrients. This often occurs in small areas in depressions or at source outlets in pasture areas; partly also in case of damage to the vegetation scar by vehicles.

Distribution and location

The flutter rush is particularly common worldwide in the moderate latitudes of the northern hemisphere, in the tropics the species is found particularly in higher regions, in the Andes, for example, at heights of up to 3600 meters. In the moderate latitudes of the southern hemisphere, however, it is only found scattered.

In the Allgäu Alps, it rises between Altstädtner Hof and Sonnenkopf east of Fischen in Bavaria up to 1,440 m above sea level.

It grows in damp to wet locations such as wet meadows and wet pastures, moors , at the edges of roads or in wooded areas and preferably soaks to waterlogging, nutrient-rich, mostly low-lime, moderately acidic loam or peat soils . In Central Europe it is a character species of the Epilobio-Juncetum effusi, but also occurs in societies of the Molinion, Agropyro-Rumicion or those of the Atropetalia order.

Systematics

According to Kirschner, J. et al. (2002) five subspecies are distinguished:

  • Juncus effusus subsp. austrocalifornicus lint ; California to Mexico
  • Juncus effusus subsp. effusus ; Northern hemisphere to South America
  • Juncus effusus subsp. laxus (Robyns & Tournay) Snogerup ; Indian Ocean, South Africa
  • Juncus effusus subsp. pacificus (Fernald & Wiegand) Piper & Beattie ; Alaska to Mexico
  • Juncus effusus subsp. solutus (Fernald & Wiegand) Hämet-Ahti ; East North America

The type epithet effusus is of Latin origin from effúndere = to spread and refers to the loosely spread, "fluttering" inflorescences of the bulrush.

use

The rush is used as an ornamental plant for indoor and outdoor use. Cultivars are Spiralis with twisted leaves, Aurius striatus with yellow-striped leaves, Golden Line and Pencil Grass .

In Japan, fluttering rushes, called イ グ サigusa in Japanese , are still used today to make the plaited tops of traditional tatami mats with a rice straw core. The rushes required are propagated in spring via rhizome sections and grown on irrigated fields in a similar way to rice cultivation. The harvest takes place in August, when the rushes are about one meter high, a little longer than the classic width of a tatami of 85 to 95 cm. The cultivation reached its maximum with 12,300 hectares of cultivation area in the mid-1960s, but has steadily declined since then, as the demand for tatami continues to decline due to the increasingly western way of living in Japan.

literature

  • Jürke Grau, BP Kremer, BM Möseler, G. Rambold & D. Triebel: Grasses. Sweet grasses, sour grasses, rushes and grass-like families in Europe. Mosaik-Verlag, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-576-10702-9 .
  • Henning Haeupler , Thomas Muer: picture atlas of the fern and flowering plants of Germany (= the fern and flowering plants of Germany. Volume 2). Published by the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation. Ulmer, Stuttgart 2000, ISBN 3-8001-3364-4 .
  • Erich Oberdorfer : Plant-sociological excursion flora. Ulmer, 7th edition Stuttgart 1994. ISBN 3-8252-1828-7 .
  • Ruprecht Düll , Herfried Kutzelnigg : Pocket dictionary of plants in Germany and neighboring countries. The most common Central European species in portrait. 7th, corrected and enlarged edition. Quelle & Meyer, Wiebelsheim 2011, ISBN 978-3-494-01424-1 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Manfred A. Fischer, Karl Oswald, Wolfgang Adler: Excursion flora for Austria, Liechtenstein and South Tyrol . 3rd, improved edition. State of Upper Austria, Biology Center of the Upper Austrian State Museums, Linz 2008, ISBN 978-3-85474-187-9 .
  2. ↑ a b Erich Oberdorfer : Plant-sociological excursion flora for Germany and neighboring areas . 8th edition. Stuttgart, Verlag Eugen Ulmer, 2001. ISBN 3-8001-3131-5
  3. ^ Henrik Balslev & Alejandro Zuluaga: Flora de Colombia - Juncaceae. 2009, p. 42, Bogotá, ISSN  0120-4351
  4. ↑ Erhard Dörr, Wolfgang Lippert : Flora of the Allgäu and its surroundings. Volume 1, IHW, Eching 2001, ISBN 3-930167-50-6 , p. 300.
  5. ^ To Royal Botanic Gardens KEW
  6. ↑ Helmut Genaust: Etymological dictionary of botanical plant names. 3rd, completely revised and expanded edition. Birkhäuser, Basel / Boston / Berlin 1996, ISBN 3-7643-2390-6 (reprint ISBN 3-937872-16-7 ).
  7. ↑ Juncus effusus 'spiralis'. In: Odile Koenig: Encyclopédie visuelle des plantes d'intérieur. Editions Artemis, Losange 2005, p. 249.
  8. ↑ Rush. Juncus effusus. In: Wolfgang Hensel and Renate Hudak: Garden - The Green by GU: Garden practice step by step. Gräfe and Unzer, Munich 2011, p. 403.
  9. ↑ Igusa. Entry in the Khartasia database, University of Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne .
  10. ↑ The main crops: Igusa (I-grass). In: Martin Schwind : The Japanese island kingdom. Volume 2: Cultural landscape, economic superpower in a small area. De Gruyter, Berlin and New York 1981, p. 529.

Web links

Commons : Flatter-Bulse  - album with pictures, videos and audio files