Luzula cascadensis

Family: Juncaceae · Type: perennial · Native

Cascade woodrush is a California native perennial found in high elevation meadows, wetlands, and creek banks of the Sierra Nevada and Cascade Mountains at elevations of 1,000 to 3,400 meters. Flowering occurs during the growing season, this plant produces small pale to dark brown flowers in dense umbel-like clusters. Growing with elongate, fragile rhizomes and stems 10 to 70 centimeters tall, it forms clumps in seasonally saturated soils. Its flat leaves are 4 to 23 centimeters long, 1.5 to 5.7 millimeters wide, with distinctive ciliate edges and thickened blunt tips. The small obovoid fruits are shorter than the perianth, with seeds measuring 1 to 1.6 millimeters long.

Habitat: Seasonally to perennially saturated soils, peatlands, springs, pond shores, wet meadows, creek banks

Elevation: 1000-3400 m

Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.