Rhynchospora harveyi |
Rhynchospora wrightiana |
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Harvey's beaksedge |
Wright's beaksedge |
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Habit | Plants perennial, cespitose, 70–110 cm; rhizomes absent. | Plants perennial, cespitose, 10–50 cm; rhizomes absent. | ||||
Culms | erect to excurved, leafy, obscurely trigonous, slender. |
slender, ± filiform, leafy, terete to bluntly trigonous. |
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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. |
shorter than culm; blades spreading to ascending, ± filiform, proximally flat, 0.5–1(–1.5) mm, apex tapering, trigonous. |
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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 1–3, loose to dense, widely spaced to close together, turbinate to hemispheric; leafy bracts setaceous, mostly exceeding spikelet clusters. |
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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, lanceovoid, 2.5–3.5(–4) mm, apex acute; fertile scales ovate, 2–3.5 mm, apex acute or acuminate, rarely minutely awned. |
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Flowers | perianth bristles mostly 6, rarely reaching fruit midbody, antrorsely barbellate. |
bristles 6, of various length, mostly extending from fruit midbody to tubercle base, 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–)2–2.5 mm; body brown with pale center, lenticular, broadly ellipsoid, 1.5–1.7 × 1.2–1.3 mm, surfaces nearly smooth or very finely cancellate; tubercle flat, triangular with short-oblong, blunttipped nose, or triangularsubulate, 0.5–0.8 mm. |
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Rhynchospora harveyi |
Rhynchospora wrightiana |
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Phenology | Fruiting late spring–fall or all year (south). | |||||
Habitat | Sands and peats in flatwoods, pine savannas, pond and stream banks, bogs, and seeps | |||||
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; FL; GA; MS; NC; SC; VA; Central America; West Indies
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Discussion | Varieties 2 (2 in the flora). (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
The morphologic boundary between Rhynchospora wrightiana and R. fascicularis (particularly morphs of R. fascicularis referred to R. fascicularis var. distans) is difficult, as recent annotations of the material testify. It is best to consider R. wrightiana as a lower, distinctly filiformleaved entity with darker brown, shorter spikelets and shorter fruit. Kükenthal’s concept of R. wrightiana appears to include a considerable amount of R. fascicularis var. distans. (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. 236. | ||||
Parent taxa | Cyperaceae > Rhynchospora | Cyperaceae > Rhynchospora | ||||
Sibling taxa | ||||||
Subordinate taxa | ||||||
Synonyms | R. gracillima, R. distans var. gracillima, R. distans var. tenuis | |||||
Name authority | W. Boott: Bot. Gaz. 9: 85. (1884) | Boeckeler: Flora 64: 78. (1881) | ||||
Web links |