Rhynchospora fernaldii |
Rhynchospora latifolia |
|
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Fernald's beaksedge |
sandswamp whitetop |
|
Habit | Plants perennial, cespitose, 15–50 cm; rhizomes absent. | Plants perennial, cespitose or solitary, to 100 cm; rhizomes scaly, 3–4 mm thick. |
Culms | erect or ascending, slender, leafy proximal to middle, somewhat stiff. |
arching or erect, leafy-based, distally wandlike, terete, multiribbed. |
Leaves | overtopped by culm; blades ascending, ± filiform, proximally flat or slightly concave, to 1 mm wide, apex narrowing, trigonous, abruptly blunt. |
ascending to spreading, overtopped by scape; blades linear, proximally flat, 2.5–5 mm wide, apex subulate, trigonous. |
Inflorescences | spikelet clusters 1–2, if 2 then close together, dense, broadly turbinate to hemispheric or even globose; primary leafy bract setaceous, exceeding clusters. |
terminal, headlike clusters of spikelets, clusters dense, leafy-involucrate; involucral bracts several, spreading to downcurved, longest 6–13 cm × 5–10 mm, mostly white to midbract, then green, abruptly narrowly linear. |
Spikelets | redbrown, ovoid, 2–2.5(–4) mm, apex acute; fertile scales broadly ovate, 1.5–1.9(–2) mm, apex acute to acuminate, midrib excurrent as awn to 0.5 mm. |
white, ovoid, 5–7 mm; fertile scales boatshaped, sharply curved-keeled, 5 mm, apex acute. |
Flowers | bristles 6, some reaching to apex of fruit body. |
perianth absent. |
Fruits | 2–3 per spikelet, 1–1.2(–1.4) mm; body dull dark brown with paler brown center, lenticular, broadly obovoid to broadly ellipsoid, 1 × 0.8 mm, margins narrow, flowing to tubercle; tubercle nearly equilaterally triangular, 0.2–0.3 mm. |
several per spikelet, 1.5–2 mm; body yellowish to deep brown, tumidly lenticular, broadly obovoid to orbicular or oblate, 1.5 mm, widest at or toward midbody, margins flowing to tubercle; surfaces with many fine rows of vertical shallow lattices, their contiguous ends making transverse rows of papillae; tubercle crescent-based, depressed-triangular, 0.5 mm, apex acute. |
2n | = 12. |
|
Rhynchospora fernaldii |
Rhynchospora latifolia |
|
Phenology | Fruiting summer–fall. | Fruiting late spring–summer. |
Habitat | Sands and peats of low clearings in flatwoods, savannas, and bog edges | Sands and peats of bogs in pine savannas and flatwoods |
Elevation | 0–100 m (0–300 ft) | 0–200 m (0–700 ft) |
Distribution |
AL; FL; GA; MS |
AL; FL; GA; LA; MS; NC; SC; TX
|
Discussion | A specimen collected near Tullahoma, Tennessee, reported as Dichromena latifolia (A. Gattinger 1901), was later destroyed by fire. I did not see the specimen, nor was a description of it published. Because extant populations of the similar Rhynchospora colorata are just over the border in Alabama, that species is likely to have been the one found by Gattinger. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
|
Source | FNA vol. 23, p. 235. | FNA vol. 23. |
Parent taxa | Cyperaceae > Rhynchospora | Cyperaceae > Rhynchospora |
Sibling taxa | ||
Synonyms | R. fascicularis var. fernaldii | Dichromena latifolia, R. stellata var. latifolia |
Name authority | Gale: Rhodora 46: 182, plate 825, figs. 3A, B. (1944) | (Baldwin) W. W. Thomas: Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 37: 86. (1984) |
Web links |