Rhynchospora pusilla |
Rhynchospora breviseta |
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Habit | Plants perennial, densely cespitose, 15–50(–60) cm; rhizomes absent. | Plants perennial, densely cespitose, knottybased, 20–40 cm; rhizomes absent. |
Culms | erect or arching, leafy toward base, filiform, terete, wiry. |
leafy at base, filiform, wiry. |
Leaves | overtopped by culm; blades linear to filiform, channeled, 0.3–0.5 mm wide, margins deeply involute, apex setaceous. |
blades filiform, nearly reaching inflorescence tip or much shorter, to 0.3 mm thick, apex tapering. |
Inflorescences | spikelet clusters 1–2(–3), dense to open, narrowly to broadly turbinate; branches capillary, variously elongate; leafy bracts setaceous, equaling or exceeding clusters. |
spikelet clusters mostly 2–6, simple or reduced to 1 spikelet, often with 2 capillary branches, one divaricate or reflexed, 1 ascending; leafy bracts single per cluster, filiform, setaceous, with clusters appearing lateral to bracts. |
Spikelets | variously brown, ellipsoid, 2–3 mm, apex sharply acute; fertile scales ovate to nearly orbiculate, rounded, 1.2–1.8 mm, apiculate, convexcupulate, midrib slender, mostly included. |
pale redbrown, ellipsoidlanceoloid, 5–6(–8) mm, apex acute to acuminate; fertile scales narrowly ovate, 3–5(–6) mm, apex acute, midrib included or shortexcurrent. |
Flowers | perianth absent. |
perianth bristles 6, not reaching past fruit midbody, stubby, plumose to near tip. |
Fruits | 2–3 per spikelet, 0.7–0.9(–1) mm; body pale, obovoid-lenticular, (0.5–)0.6–0.9 × 0.4–0.5 mm, margin wirelike; surfaces transversely rugulose; tubercle buttonlike, depressed triangular, 0.05–0.1 mm, base lunate atop rounded fruit body. |
3–8 per spikelet, 2–2.5 mm; body light brown to brown, ellipsoid-obovoid, tumidly lenticular, 1.5–2 × 1.6–1.7 mm; surfaces faintly, interruptedly crossrugulose, apically indented under tubercle; tubercle lowconic, 0.5 mm, base flaring, circular. |
Rhynchospora pusilla |
Rhynchospora breviseta |
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Phenology | Fruiting summer–fall. | Fruiting spring–summer. |
Habitat | Moist sands, peats and silts of low meadows, savannas, bogs, seeps, pond shores | Moist to wet sands or peats of bogs, depressions in savannas, open pinelands, pond shores |
Elevation | 0–300 m (0–1000 ft) | 0–200 m (0–700 ft) |
Distribution |
AL; FL; GA; LA; MS; NC; SC; TX; Mexico; Central America; West Indies |
AL; FL; GA; LA; MS; NC; SC; VA; West Indies |
Discussion | Rhynchospora breviseta is sympatric with R. oligantha over much of its range; intergrades have not been seen. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
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Source | FNA vol. 23, p. 220. | FNA vol. 23. |
Parent taxa | Cyperaceae > Rhynchospora | Cyperaceae > Rhynchospora |
Sibling taxa | ||
Synonyms | Phaeocephalum pusillum, R. intermixta | R. oligantha var. breviseta |
Name authority | Chapman ex M. A. Curtis: Amer. J. Sci. Arts, ser. 2, 7: 409. (1849) | (Gale) Channell: Rhodora 58: 336. (1956) |
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