Scheuchzeria

Scheuchzeria palustris (Rannoch-rush, or pod grass), is a flowering plant from the household Scheuchzeriaceae, where there are only one species and Scheuchzeria is the sole genus. From the APG II system, It’s placed in the order Alismatales of the monocots.

Description

It’s a herbaceous perennial plant, native to cool temperate areas of the Northern Hemisphere, where it grows in moist Sphagnum peat bogs. It grows to 10–40 cm tall, with narrow linear leaves alternating up the stem, using a basal sheath. The leaves can be up to 20 cm. The leaf tips are blunt with a pore that is conspicuous.

It’s a creeping rhizome clothed in papery, straw-coloured remains of old leaf bases.

The blossoms are greenish-yellow, 4–6 mm diameter, with six tepals. They have an inflated sheathing base, 6 stamens and 3 carpels. It flowers from June until August.

Etymology

The genus is named after Johann Jakob Scheuchzer, a Swiss naturalist, and his brother, Johann Gaspar Scheuchzer. The species name is from the Latin for a swamp.

The English name refers to its occurrence on Rannoch Moor in fundamental Scotland, the first website in Great Britain the species was known from, and only one where it now happens; it’s extinct in some other wetland sites farther south in Britain, being found in pools and wet hollows of historical undisturbed Sphagnum bogs.