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Harvey's beaksedge

Habit Plants perennial, cespitose, 70–110 cm; rhizomes absent.
Culms

erect to excurved, leafy, obscurely trigonous, slender.

Leaves

spreading to ascending, shorter than culm, crowded toward culm base;

blades linear, proximally flat, 1–3 mm wide, gradually involute, apically trigonous, subulate.

Inflorescences

spikelet clusters 1–4, dense to open, mostly irregularly turbinate;

peduncles ascending, branches spreading to erect, ultimate branches with many spikelets; leafy bracts setaceoustipped, usually exceeding all clusters, or at least all but the distal.

Spikelets

light redbrown or brown, broadly ellipsoid to lanceoloid, 3–4 mm, apex acute to acuminate;

fertile scales ovate to obovate or suborbiculate, 2–3.5 mm apex acute to rounded or emarginate, midrib included or exserted as mucro.

Flowers

perianth bristles mostly 6, rarely reaching fruit midbody, antrorsely barbellate.

Fruits

mostly 1 per spikelet, 2–2.5 mm, body dark brown, obovoid to subglobose, tumid or lenticular, 1.5–1.7 mm, transversely finely rugose to nearly level, intervals with very small, pitlike alveoli.

Rhynchospora harveyi

Distribution
from FNA
AL; AR; FL; GA; KS; LA; MO; MS; NC; OK; SC; TN; TX; VA; se United States; Midwestern
[BONAP county map]
Discussion

Varieties 2 (2 in the flora).

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)

Key
1. Fruit body broadly obovoid to suborbicular, medially with mostly isodiametric tiny alveoli or pits, or minutely raised reticulate in an almost honeycomb pattern of alveolae, or simply evenly finely cancellate; ultimate spikelet complexes with clusters on stiffish branchlets, usually dense and exceeded at least by subulate tips of subtending leafy bract and bractlets.
var. harveyi
1. Fruit body obovoid, lenticular, medially with oblong or roundish pitlike alveoli, intervals between contiguous transverse rows forming shallow, broad, pale, smooth ridges; ultimate spikelet clusters more sparse, on more slender, lax, erect to excurved branches and exceeding subtending bracts and bractlets.
var. culixa
Source FNA vol. 23, p. 231.
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. divergens, 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. 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
Subordinate taxa
R. harveyi var. culixa, R. harveyi var. harveyi
Name authority W. Boott: Bot. Gaz. 9: 85. (1884)
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