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spreading beaksedge

Habit Plants perennial, densely cespitose, 10–60 cm; rhizomes absent.
Culms

erect or spreadingarching, linearfiliform, terete, leafy toward base.

Leaves

overtopped by culm;

blades ascending, filiform, 0.3–0.5 mm wide, margins deeply involute, then channeled, apex trigonous, setaceous.

Inflorescences

spikelet clusters 1–2(–4), dense(–open), narrowly to broadly turbinate;

branches capillary, variously elongate; leafy bracts setaceous, proximal exceeding clusters.

Spikelets

brownish, lanceellipsoid to fusiform, 2–2.5(–3) mm, apex acute;

fertile scales broadly elliptic, 1.5 mm, apex narrowly rounded to broadly acute, apiculate, convexcupulate, midrib narrow, shortexcurrent or included.

Flowers

perianth absent.

Fruits

1–3 or more per spikelet, (0.6–)0.7–0.9(–1) mm;

body pale, glassy, obovoidlenticular, 0.6–0.7 × 0.4–0.5 mm, margins narrow, wirelike;

surfaces finely striate, very finely reticulate;

tubercle button depressedtriangular or patelliform, 0.1–0.15 mm, apiculate.

Rhynchospora divergens

Phenology Fruiting summer–fall or all year (south).
Habitat Moist sands, peats, silts or clays of low meadows, bogs, flatwoods, sometimes seeps over calcareous rock
Elevation 0–300 m (0–1000 ft)
Distribution
from FNA
AL; FL; GA; LA; MS; NC; SC; TX; Central America; West Indies (Bahamas, Cuba, Dominican Republic)
[BONAP county map]
Source FNA vol. 23, p. 220.
Parent taxa Cyperaceae > Rhynchospora
Sibling taxa
R. alba, R. baldwinii, R. brachychaeta, R. breviseta, R. caduca, R. californica, R. capillacea, R. capitellata, R. careyana, R. cephalantha, R. chalarocephala, R. chapmanii, R. ciliaris, R. colorata, R. compressa, R. corniculata, R. crinipes, R. curtissii, R. debilis, R. decurrens, R. elliottii, R. eximia, R. fascicularis, R. fernaldii, R. filifolia, R. floridensis, R. fusca, R. globularis, R. glomerata, R. gracilenta, R. grayi, R. harperi, R. harveyi, R. indianolensis, R. inexpansa, R. inundata, R. knieskernii, R. kunthii, R. latifolia, R. macra, R. macrostachya, R. megalocarpa, R. megaplumosa, R. microcarpa, R. microcephala, R. miliacea, R. mixta, R. nitens, R. nivea, R. odorata, R. oligantha, R. pallida, R. perplexa, R. pineticola, R. pleiantha, R. plumosa, R. punctata, R. pusilla, R. rariflora, R. recognita, R. scirpoides, R. solitaria, R. stenophylla, R. thornei, R. torreyana, R. tracyi, R. wrightiana
Name authority Chapman ex M. A. Curtis: Amer. J. Sci. Arts, ser. 2, 7: 409. (1849)
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