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Vahl's fimbristylis, Vahl's fimbry

Habit Plants annual, cespitose, delicate, 4–15 cm, bases soft; rhizomes absent.
Leaves

polystichous, mostly spreading or excurved, often exceeding culms;

sheaths entire, abaxially smooth or sparsely hirtellous;

ligule absent;

blades filiform, to 0.5 mm wide, somewhat involute, abaxially glabrous or ascending-strigillose.

Inflorescences

terminal;

spikelets sessile or subsessile in single capitate leafy-involucrate cluster;

scapes filiform;

involucral bracts leafy, setaceous, greatly overtopping inflorescence.

Spikelets

greenish, cylindric to lanceoloid-cylindric, 5–10 mm;

fertile scales narrowly ovate to lanceolate, 1–1.5 mm, acute, glabrous, midrib strong, excurrent as cusp.

Flowers

stamens 1;

styles 2-fid, slender, bulbous-based, smooth or papillate.

Achenes

pale, tumidly obovoid, 0.5–0.7 mm, cancellate, pits horizontally rectangular in 5–7 vertical rows per side.

2n

= 20.

Fimbristylis vahlii

Phenology Fruiting summer–fall.
Habitat Moist to wet, alluvial or mineralized banks, shores, fluctuating pond and lake edges, often a “drawdown” plant around stock tanks and reservoirs
Elevation 0–500 m (0–1600 ft)
Distribution
from FNA
AL; AR; AZ; CA; FL; GA; IL; KS; KY; LA; MO; MS; NE; OK; SC; TN; TX; Mexico; Central America; South America
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Source FNA vol. 23, p. 127.
Parent taxa Cyperaceae > Fimbristylis
Sibling taxa
F. annua, F. autumnalis, F. brevivaginata, F. caroliniana, F. castanea, F. cymosa, F. decipiens, F. dichotoma, F. miliacea, F. perpusilla, F. puberula, F. schoenoides, F. squarrosa, F. thermalis, F. tomentosa
Synonyms Scirpus vahlii, F. apus, F. congesta, F. vincentii, Isolepis vahlii, Scirpus apus
Name authority (Lamarck) Link: Hort. Berol. 1: 287. (1827)
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