Rhynchospora harveyi
Rhynchospora nivea
Harvey's beaksedge
showy whitetop
erect to excurved, leafy, obscurely trigonous, slender.
erect to spreading-ascending, leafybased, trigonous or compressed, ribbed.
spreading to ascending, shorter than culm, crowded toward culm base;
blades linear, proximally flat, 1–3 mm wide, gradually involute, apically trigonous, subulate.
exceeded by scape;
blades narrowly linear to filiform, 0.2–2 mm wide, apex tapering, trigonous.
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, solitary, headlike, dense, white, leafyinvolucrate, hemispheric to globose, 0.5–1.5 cm wide;
involucral bracts (0–)1–4, ascending to recurved, green, (0.7–)2–5(–6) cm × 0.2–2 mm.
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.
white, ovoid, 5–7 mm;
fertile scales several, boat-shaped, 2.5–3.5 mm, keel curved, not sharp.
perianth bristles mostly 6, rarely reaching fruit midbody, antrorsely barbellate.
perianth absent.
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.
0.8–1 mm;
body yellow to near black, broadly pyriform-obovoid, tumidly lenticular, 0.5–0.8 × 0.5–0.8 mm, margin narrow, flowing into tubercle;
surfaces transversely sharply wavyrugose, ridges bordered by rows of fine, linear, vertical lattices;
tubercle depressedtriangular, lunate-based, shortbeaked 0.2(–0.3) mm, gray-crustaceous.
Rhynchospora harveyi
Rhynchospora nivea
Varieties 2 (2 in the flora).
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Rhynchospora nivea, of the “Dichromena” of North America, is the smallest fruited and most slender and has the fewest and shortest involucral bracts (in some plants the bract is entirely absent). Involucral bracts of R. nivea are almost entirely green.
(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 |
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