Rhynchospora pineticola
Rhynchospora latifolia
pine barren beaksedge
sandswamp whitetop
erect to ascending, leafy, stiff.
arching or erect, leafy-based, distally wandlike, terete, multiribbed.
shorter than scape;
blades narrowly linear, (1–)2–3 mm wide, margins involute, apex trigonous, tapering.
ascending to spreading, overtopped by scape;
blades linear, proximally flat, 2.5–5 mm wide, apex subulate, trigonous.
clusters 1–2, if 2 then close together, dense, broadly turbinate to hemispheric or lobedglobose;
primary leafy bract linear, stiff, exceeding clusters.
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.
light to dark redbrown, lanceovoid, 3.5–6 mm, apex acuminate;
fertile scales ovate, convex, 3–3.5(–4) mm, apex acuminate, low midrib excurrent or not.
white, ovoid, 5–7 mm;
fertile scales boatshaped, sharply curved-keeled, 5 mm, apex acute.
perianth bristles 6, reaching at least to tubercle base, plumose from base to more than 1/2 length of fruit body.
perianth absent.
1(–2) per spikelet, (2–)2.5–2.8(–3) mm;
body redbrown or brown, tumidly obovoid, (1.5–)2–2.2 × 1–1.7 mm;
surfaces interruptedly transversely rugulose;
tubercle broadly conic, 0.5–0.8(–1) mm, base broadly 2lobed, apex often apiculate.
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.
= 12.
Rhynchospora pineticola
Rhynchospora latifolia
Rhynchospora pineticola is distinguished from taller extremes of R. plumosa by its thicker leaves and scapes and its longer spikelets and fruit. Its bases are a deep rich red-brown rather than the pale brown or dull deep brown of R. plumosa.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
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.)
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