Rhynchospora harveyi |
Rhynchospora capitellata |
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Harvey's beaksedge |
brownish beak-rush, brownish beaksedge, capitate beak rush, rhynchospore à petites têtes |
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Habit | Plants perennial, cespitose, 70–110 cm; rhizomes absent. | Plants perennial, cespitose, 20–100 cm; rhizomes absent. | ||||
Culms | erect to excurved, leafy, obscurely trigonous, slender. |
arching-ascending, leafy, obtusely trigonous, slender; principal leaves overtopped by inflorescence; blades flat, to 3 mm, apex tapering, trigonous. |
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Leaves | spreading to ascending, shorter than culm, crowded toward culm base; blades linear, proximally flat, 1–3 mm wide, gradually involute, apically trigonous, subulate. |
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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. |
terminal and axillary, clusters 1–5 or more, compact, turbinate or hemispheric, 1–1.5 cm wide; peduncles progressively shorter distally on culm; bracteal leaves mostly exceeding subtended compounds. |
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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. |
rich deep brown, rarely pale brown, lanceellipsoid, 3.5–4(–5) mm; fertile scale elliptic, 2.7–3 mm, apex acute or rounded, midrib shortexcurrent or not. |
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Flowers | perianth bristles mostly 6, rarely reaching fruit midbody, antrorsely barbellate. |
perianth absent. |
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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. |
(1–)2–3(–5) per spikelet, (2–)2.5–3 mm; body redbrown with pale central disc, stipitate, lenticular, obovoid, 1.2–1.5 × 0.7–1(–1.2) mm, margins pale, wirelike, surfaces slick; tubercle triangular-subulate, (0.8–)1–1.2(–1.6) mm. |
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Rhynchospora harveyi |
Rhynchospora capitellata |
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Phenology | Fruiting summer–fall. | |||||
Habitat | Moist to wet meadows, swales, seeps, stream banks, flatwoods, fens, and bogs | |||||
Elevation | 0–1600 m (0–5200 ft) | |||||
Distribution |
AL; AR; FL; GA; KS; LA; MO; MS; NC; OK; SC; TN; TX; VA; se United States; Midwestern |
AL; AR; CA; CT; DC; DE; FL; GA; IL; IN; KS; KY; LA; MA; MD; ME; MI; MN; MO; MS; NC; NH; NJ; NY; OH; OR; PA; RI; SC; TN; TX; VA; VT; WI; WV; NB; NS; ON; QC
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Discussion | Varieties 2 (2 in the flora). (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Rhynchospora capitellata occurs infrequently in the lower Gulf coastal plain (in Florida, only north) and intergrades with R. glomerata. Forms with antrorsely barbellate bristles are referred to forma controversa (S. F. Blake) Gale; those with smooth bristles are named forma discutiens (C. B. Clarke) Gale (S. Gale 1944). Occasional forms with trigonous fruits occur. Bruce Sorrie (pers. comm.) believes that many of the southern coastal plain records for Rhynchospora capitellata are based on examples of a neglected taxon, R. leptocarpa (Chapman) Small (J. K. Small 1933), and he wishes to reinstate it. Occurring in semi-shady moist sites in steepheads, or from seeps and shallows along blackwater streams, the plants are mostly distinguished by the tall, lax habit; the many distant, small clusters of light brown or tan spikelets; and the softer, more lax foliage. Measures of spikelets, fertile scales, perianth, achenes, and fruit tubercles show a strong overlap with those of southern examples of R. capitellata. The long, lax culm habit, the softer and paler foliage, and the paler spikelets could well be ecologic responses, or the plants could indeed represent a geographic variant. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
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Key |
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Source | FNA vol. 23, p. 231. | FNA vol. 23, p. 210. | ||||
Parent taxa | Cyperaceae > Rhynchospora | Cyperaceae > Rhynchospora | ||||
Sibling taxa | ||||||
Subordinate taxa | ||||||
Synonyms | Schoenus capitellatus, Phaeocephalum glomeratum var. minus, R. capitellata var. leptocarpa, R. capitellata var. minor, R. glomerata var. minor, R. leptocarpa | |||||
Name authority | W. Boott: Bot. Gaz. 9: 85. (1884) | (Michaux) Vahl: Enum. Pl. 2: 235. (1805) | ||||
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