Rhynchospora latifolia
Rhynchospora solitaria
sandswamp whitetop
onespike beaksedge
arching or erect, leafy-based, distally wandlike, terete, multiribbed.
erect to ascending, narrowly linear, wandlike, terete, leafy proximal to middle.
ascending to spreading, overtopped by scape;
blades linear, proximally flat, 2.5–5 mm wide, apex subulate, trigonous.
erect to ascending;
blades proximally flat, 2.5–3.5 mm wide, apex tapering, tip abruptly blunt.
terminal, headlike clusters of spikelets, clusters dense, leafy-involucrate;
involucral bracts several, spreading to downcurved, longest 6–13 cm × 5–10 mm, mostly white to midbract, then green, abruptly narrowly linear.
terminal, cluster of spikelets crowded, broadly turbinate to hemispheric, to 1.5 cm wide; leafy bracts linearsetaceous, slightly exceeding cluster.
white, ovoid, 5–7 mm;
fertile scales boatshaped, sharply curved-keeled, 5 mm, apex acute.
orangebrown, lancefusiform, 6–7 mm, apex acuminate;
fertile scales lanceovate, 4–5 mm, apex acuminate with excurved awn to 1 mm.
perianth absent.
bristles 3–4, some reaching tubercle tip, antrorsely barbellate.
several per spikelet, 1.5–2 mm;
body yellowish to deep brown, tumidly lenticular, broadly obovoid to orbicular or oblate, 1.5 mm, widest at or toward midbody, margins flowing to tubercle;
surfaces with many fine rows of vertical shallow lattices, their contiguous ends making transverse rows of papillae;
tubercle crescent-based, depressed-triangular, 0.5 mm, apex acute.
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.
= 12.
Rhynchospora latifolia
Rhynchospora solitaria
A specimen collected near Tullahoma, Tennessee, reported as Dichromena latifolia (A. Gattinger 1901), was later destroyed by fire. I did not see the specimen, nor was a description of it published. Because extant populations of the similar Rhynchospora colorata are just over the border in Alabama, that species is likely to have been the one found by Gattinger.
(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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