Rhynchospora eximia |
Rhynchospora pusilla |
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Florida beaksedge |
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Habit | Plants perennial or annual, single or cespitose, (10–)20–50 cm; rhizomes absent. | Plants perennial, densely cespitose, 15–50(–60) cm; rhizomes absent. |
Culms | spreading to erect, leafy, obtusely triangular. |
erect or arching, leafy toward base, filiform, terete, wiry. |
Leaves | often exceeding inflorescences; blades narrowly linear, proximally flat, 1–3 mm wide, apex trigonous, tapering. |
overtopped by culm; blades linear to filiform, channeled, 0.3–0.5 mm wide, margins deeply involute, apex setaceous. |
Inflorescences | terminal and axillary, clusters of 1–5 corymbs; leafy bracts much exceeding corymbs. |
spikelet clusters 1–2(–3), dense to open, narrowly to broadly turbinate; branches capillary, variously elongate; leafy bracts setaceous, equaling or exceeding clusters. |
Spikelets | few to several, on ascending, stiff, short-to-elongate branches, red-brown to brown, lanceoloid, (5–)6–10 mm, apex acuminate; fertile scales many, ovate, shallowly convex, 5 mm, apex acuminate; midrib short-excurrent or not. |
variously brown, ellipsoid, 2–3 mm, apex sharply acute; fertile scales ovate to nearly orbiculate, rounded, 1.2–1.8 mm, apiculate, convexcupulate, midrib slender, mostly included. |
Flowers | perianth absent. |
perianth absent. |
Fruits | 1.5 mm; body dark brown to black, tumidly lenticular, nearly orbicular, 0.8–0.9 × 0.6–0.7 mm, margins grooved, discontinuous with tubercle; surfaces transversely wavyrugose, ridges of contiguous rows of vertical, linear, raised cells; tubercle broad, low triangular, 0.2–0.3 mm, crustaceous, base capping fruit summit, raised at ends, apex shortacuminate. |
2–3 per spikelet, 0.7–0.9(–1) mm; body pale, obovoid-lenticular, (0.5–)0.6–0.9 × 0.4–0.5 mm, margin wirelike; surfaces transversely rugulose; tubercle buttonlike, depressed triangular, 0.05–0.1 mm, base lunate atop rounded fruit body. |
Rhynchospora eximia |
Rhynchospora pusilla |
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Phenology | Fruiting all year. | Fruiting summer–fall. |
Habitat | Moist to wet sandy peaty swales, pond shores, depressions in savannas, moist waste areas | Moist sands, peats and silts of low meadows, savannas, bogs, seeps, pond shores |
Elevation | 0–100[–1000] m (0–300[–3300] ft) | 0–300 m (0–1000 ft) |
Distribution |
FL; Mexico; Central America; South America; West Indies; Africa |
AL; FL; GA; LA; MS; NC; SC; TX; Mexico; Central America; West Indies |
Discussion | Rhynchospora eximia is often found at elevations from near sea level to over 1000 m in the tropics. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
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Source | FNA vol. 23, p. 216. | FNA vol. 23, p. 220. |
Parent taxa | ||
Sibling taxa | ||
Synonyms | Spermodon eximius, Psilocarya schiedeana, R. oxycephala, R. psilocaroides | Phaeocephalum pusillum, R. intermixta |
Name authority | (Nees) Boeckeler: Linnaea 37: 601. (1873) | Chapman ex M. A. Curtis: Amer. J. Sci. Arts, ser. 2, 7: 409. (1849) |
Web links |