Rhynchospora harveyi
Rhynchospora oligantha
Harvey's beaksedge
featherbristle beaksedge
erect to excurved, leafy, obscurely trigonous, slender.
filiform, leafy at base, wiry.
spreading to ascending, shorter than culm, crowded toward culm base;
blades linear, proximally flat, 1–3 mm wide, gradually involute, apically trigonous, subulate.
ascending to erect;
blades filiform, nearly terete, or channeled, sometimes compressed, nearly reaching distal inflorescence or much shorter, 0.2–0.3 mm thick, apex 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 2–6, simple or reduced to 1 spikelet, branches ascending to divaricate or reflexed; leafy bracts single per cluster, filiform, setaceous, with clusters appearing lateral to bracts.
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.
pale redbrown, ellipsoidlanceoloid, 5–6(–8) mm, apex acute to acuminate;
fertile scales oblongelliptic, convex, acuminate, 3.5–5 mm, apex broadly acute, midrib forming apiculus.
perianth bristles mostly 6, rarely reaching fruit midbody, antrorsely barbellate.
perianth bristles 6, reaching to or slightly past tubercle base, increasingly plumose from middle to base.
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.
1–3 per spikelet, (2.5–)2.7–3(–3.4) mm;
body light brown to brown, ellipsoidobovoid, distally conspicuously necked, tumidly lenticular, 1.7–2.5 × 1.5–1.8 mm;
surfaces smooth or minutely transversely rugulose;
tubercle conicsubulate, 0.5–0.7 mm, base flaring.
Rhynchospora harveyi
Rhynchospora oligantha
Varieties 2 (2 in the flora).
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Rhynchospora oligantha is distinguished from other taxa of its complex mostly by the distinctive neck at the achene apex, a feature essentially absent in R. breviseta, its closest relative. Those two species have been heavily impacted by conversion of pine savannas to cropland or pine plantations; even with abandonment or clearing of such land, they are very slow to reoccupy the disturbed sites.
(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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