Flora of North America species comparison

The green links below add additional plants to the comparison table. Blue links lead to other Web sites.
enable glossary links

Eriocaulon lineare

narrow pipewort
Habit Herbs, perennial, 6–20 cm (–80 cm when submersed).
Leaves

linear-attenuate, 1–10 cm (–20 cm when submersed), apex filiform.
Inflorescences

scape sheaths mostly shorter than leaves in emergents, exceeding them in drier sites;

scapes linear, 1 mm wide, 4–7-ribbed;

heads (young or mature) very pale, hemispheric to nearly globose, rarely short-cylindric, 4–10 mm wide, soft, flattened when pressed;

receptacle glabrous;

involucral bracts sometimes squarrose, obscured by reflexed bracteoles and flowers of mature heads, straw-colored, orbiculate to ovate, 2–2.5 mm, margins entire, apex rounded, with white, club-shaped hairs;

receptacular bracts and bracteoles pale except for grayish midzone, obovate to cuneate, 2 mm, margins entire, apex acute, ciliate, distal abaxial surfaces with white, club-shaped hairs.
Staminate flowers

sepals 2, grayish, oblong-linear, curvate, 1.5–2 mm, apex acute with white, club-shaped hairs;

androphore club-shaped;

petals 2, pale, triangular, 0.5 mm, ciliate, hairs club-shaped;

stamens 4;

anthers black.
Pistillate flowers

sepals 2, basally pale, darkening distally to grayish, gray-green, or gray-brown, narrowly oblong-obovate, curved, 2 mm, apex rounded, abaxially with white, club-shaped hairs;

petals 2, yellow-white, broadly spatulate, flat, 1.5–2 mm, apex rounded, abaxially with white hairs, adaxially with white or clear hairs;

pistil 2-carpellate.
Seeds

dark red-brown, ovoid or ellipsoid, 0.5–0.75 mm, faintly rectangular-reticulate, often papillate in lines.

Eriocaulon lineare
Phenology Flowering mostly summer–fall.
Habitat Sandy or peaty shores, hypericum ponds, wet savanna, southern coastal plain terraces
Elevation 0–100 m (0–300 ft)
Distribution
from FNA
AL; FL; GA; NC
[WildflowerSearch map]
[BONAP county map]
Discussion

Eriocaulon lineare closely resembles E. texanum, although it has paler bracts and flowers and a glabrous (rather than pilose) receptacle. Eriocaulon lineare blooms later and is most common in the margins or shallows of ponds, rather than in the sphagnous bogs favored by E. texanum.

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Source FNA vol. 22.
Parent taxa Eriocaulaceae > Eriocaulon
Sibling taxa
E. aquaticum, E. cinereum, E. compressum, E. decangulare, E. koernickianum, E. microcephalum, E. nigrobracteatum, E. parkeri, E. ravenelii, E. texense
Name authority Small: Flora of the Southeastern United States 236, 1328. (1903)
Web links 
Unless otherwise noted, all data comes from the online version of the Flora of North America, who have made most of their content available via a Creative Commons license (CC BY 4.0).



Type/paste one or more Latin names into the boxes above; matching taxa will show up below the box as you type. You can use the up/down arrow keys to move through the list.

(If the plant you're looking for doesn't show up in the auto-complete list, that means it either isn't described in Flora of North America yet, or it's listed under a synonym. And please note that Flora of North America is still missing several plant families, including Fabaceae, Apiaceae, Boraginaceae, and Polemoniaceae.)

Choose a data source: Flora of North America

The species comparison tool is brought to you by:
Northwest Wildflowers