Rhynchospora harveyi |
Rhynchospora solitaria |
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Harvey's beaksedge |
onespike beaksedge |
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Habit | Plants perennial, cespitose, 70–110 cm; rhizomes absent. | Plants perennial, solitary or cespitose, 50–60 cm; rhizomes absent. | ||||
Culms | erect to excurved, leafy, obscurely trigonous, slender. |
erect to ascending, narrowly linear, wandlike, terete, leafy proximal to middle. |
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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. |
erect to ascending; blades proximally flat, 2.5–3.5 mm wide, apex tapering, tip abruptly blunt. |
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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, cluster of spikelets crowded, broadly turbinate to hemispheric, to 1.5 cm wide; leafy bracts linearsetaceous, slightly exceeding cluster. |
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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. |
orangebrown, lancefusiform, 6–7 mm, apex acuminate; fertile scales lanceovate, 4–5 mm, apex acuminate with excurved awn to 1 mm. |
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Flowers | perianth bristles mostly 6, rarely reaching fruit midbody, antrorsely barbellate. |
bristles 3–4, some reaching tubercle tip, antrorsely 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. |
1–2 per spikelet, 2–2.1 mm; body brown with paler center, obovoidlenticular, 1.5–1.7 × 1.2–1.3 mm, margins flowing to tubercle; surfaces finely transversely striate with minute pits; tubercle lowtriangular, 0.3–0.5 mm. |
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Rhynchospora harveyi |
Rhynchospora solitaria |
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Phenology | Fruiting summer–fall. | |||||
Habitat | Sandy peat of depressions in pine flatwoods savannas, edges of hillside bogs | |||||
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 |
GA |
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Discussion | Varieties 2 (2 in the flora). (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
Of conservation concern. Rhynchospora solitaria appears to be the least common North American species of Rhynchospora with two of the five given localities apparently lost. The name “solitaria” is deceptive; the plants sometimes form small tufts of culms. The most distinctive feature in the field is the attractive orangebrown color of the narrow, acuminate, bristlescaled spikelets. (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. 238. | ||||
Parent taxa | Cyperaceae > Rhynchospora | Cyperaceae > Rhynchospora | ||||
Sibling taxa | ||||||
Subordinate taxa | ||||||
Name authority | W. Boott: Bot. Gaz. 9: 85. (1884) | R. M. Harper: Bull. Torrey Bot. Club 28: 468. (1901) | ||||
Web links |