Rhynchospora harveyi
Rhynchospora chalarocephala
Harvey's beaksedge
loosehead beaksedge
erect to excurved, leafy, obscurely trigonous, slender.
erect to ascending-arching, slender, nearly terete, multiribbed.
spreading to ascending, shorter than culm, crowded toward culm base;
blades linear, proximally flat, 1–3 mm wide, gradually involute, apically trigonous, subulate.
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.
spikelet clusters 3–7, widely spaced, clusters loosely turbinate to hemispheric, to 1.3 cm wide.
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.
brown to pale red-brown, lance-fusiform, 3–5.5 mm;
fertile scales elliptic, 2.5–4 mm, acute, midrib short-excurrent.
perianth bristles mostly 6, rarely reaching fruit midbody, antrorsely barbellate.
perianth bristles 6, ± equaling tubercle.
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 per spikelet, (2.5–)2.7–3.3(–3.5) mm, body pale brown with yellowish center, ± broadly oblong-obovoid distal to stipe, lenticular, 1.5–2 × 0.8–1 mm;
tubercle narrowly triangularsubulate, (1–)1.2–1.5(–2) mm, less than 0.5 mm wide at base.
leaves exceeded by culm;
blades flat, linear, 1–2 mm wide, apex tapering, trigonous.
Rhynchospora harveyi
Rhynchospora chalarocephala
Varieties 2 (2 in the flora).
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Some specimens of Rhynchospora chalarocephala are very difficult to distinguish from R. microcephala, and unquestionably intergrades occur in peninsular Florida and the Gulf southern coastal plain. Rhynchospora chalarocephala tends to have longer, paler, narrower spikelets in looser clusters; the dilated part of the fruit body has a narrower, more oblong outline; and the tubercle is both narrower with a narrower base and longer (mostly 1–1.5 mm versus 0.9–1.2 mm in R. micro-cephala). Most material is easily sorted because R. chalarocephala has paler spikelets in turbinate to hemispheric clusters; the dark brown spikelets of R. microcephala are in globose heads.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
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 |
KS Wildflowers
LA Plants
MO Plants
WildflowerSearch
iNaturalist
USDA Plants Database
MD Biodiversity
