Rhynchospora harveyi |
Rhynchospora microcephala |
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Harvey's beaksedge |
smallhead beaksedge |
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Habit | Plants perennial, cespitose, 70–110 cm; rhizomes absent. | Plants perennial, cespitose, 30–90 cm; rhizomes absent. | ||||
Culms | erect to excurved, leafy, obscurely trigonous, slender. |
arching or erect, leafy, nearly terete, multiribbed, slender. |
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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. |
spikelet clusters 2–6, mostly widely spaced; clusters dense, hemispheric to mostly spheroid, 0.5–1 cm thick. |
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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. |
dark redbrown to dark brown, lanceovoid, (2–)2.5–3.5(–4) mm, apex acute; fertile scales elliptic, 2–3 mm, apex acute, midrib shortexcurrent or not. |
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Flowers | perianth bristles mostly 6, rarely reaching fruit midbody, antrorsely barbellate. |
perianth bristles 6, reaching tubercle tip, retrorsely barbellate. |
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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 per spikelet, 2.5–3 mm; body pale brown with light center, lenticular, obovoid distal to stipe, 1.1–1.5 × 0.9–1.1 mm, margins pale, wirelike, surfaces slick; tubercle triangularsubulate, 0.9–1.2(–1.5) mm, at least 0.5 mm wide at base. |
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Principal | leaves overtopped by culm; blades linear, proximally flattened, 1–3 mm wide, apex tapering, trigonous. |
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Rhynchospora harveyi |
Rhynchospora microcephala |
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Phenology | Fruiting summer–fall. | |||||
Habitat | Sands and sandy peats of savanna swales, pineland seeps, bogs, ditches, pond shores and banks | |||||
Elevation | 0–200 m (0–700 ft) | |||||
Distribution |
AL; AR; FL; GA; KS; LA; MO; MS; NC; OK; SC; TN; TX; VA; se United States; Midwestern |
AL; DC; DE; FL; GA; LA; MD; MS; NC; NJ; SC; VA; West Indies (Cuba)
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Discussion | Varieties 2 (2 in the flora). (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. 213. | ||||
Parent taxa | Cyperaceae > Rhynchospora | Cyperaceae > Rhynchospora | ||||
Sibling taxa | ||||||
Subordinate taxa | ||||||
Synonyms | R. axillaris var. microcephala, R. cephalantha var. microcephala | |||||
Name authority | W. Boott: Bot. Gaz. 9: 85. (1884) | (Britton) Britton ex Small: Fl. S.E. U.S., 195. (1903) | ||||
Web links |