Rhynchospora pusilla |
Rhynchospora ciliaris |
|
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fringe beaksedge |
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Habit | Plants perennial, densely cespitose, 15–50(–60) cm; rhizomes absent. | Plants perennial, cespitose, 30–90 cm; rhizomes absent. |
Culms | erect or arching, leafy toward base, filiform, terete, wiry. |
erect or ascending, terete to obscurely trigonous, multiribbed, densely leafybased, slender, stiff, papillose to scabridpuberulent. |
Leaves | overtopped by culm; blades linear to filiform, channeled, 0.3–0.5 mm wide, margins deeply involute, apex setaceous. |
forming strong rosette, distal widely spaced, much exceeded by scape; basal leaf blades shortlinear, flat, 4–6 mm wide, culm leaf blades narrower, longer, all ciliate, apex bluntly acute. |
Inflorescences | spikelet clusters 1–2(–3), dense to open, narrowly to broadly turbinate; branches capillary, variously elongate; leafy bracts setaceous, equaling or exceeding clusters. |
terminal; spikelet cluster 1, crowded, hemispheric, often lobed, to 2 cm wide; bracts strongly ciliate distally; longer leafy bracts exceeding cluster. |
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. |
dark redbrown, ovoid, 4–5(–6) mm, apex acute; fertile scales broadly ovate, 4–4.5 mm, apex blunt, sometimes apiculate or with mucro to 1 mm, midrib scabrid. |
Flowers | perianth absent. |
bristles 6, some vestigial, none reaching past fruit midbody, antrorsely barbellate. |
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. |
1–2 per spikelet, (1.9–)2–2.5 mm; body dark brown with paler center, lenticular, broadly ellipsoid to orbicular, 1.6–2 × 1.5–1.6 mm, margins flowing to tubercle; tubercle lowtriangular, 0.5 mm, often apiculate. |
Rhynchospora pusilla |
Rhynchospora ciliaris |
|
Phenology | Fruiting summer–fall. | Fruiting late spring–fall. |
Habitat | Moist sands, peats and silts of low meadows, savannas, bogs, seeps, pond shores | Sands and peats in bogs, seeps, depressions in savannas, and low open pinelands |
Elevation | 0–300 m (0–1000 ft) | 0–100 m (0–300 ft) |
Distribution |
AL; FL; GA; LA; MS; NC; SC; TX; Mexico; Central America; West Indies |
AL; FL; GA; LA; MS; NC; SC
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Source | FNA vol. 23, p. 220. | FNA vol. 23, p. 237. |
Parent taxa | Cyperaceae > Rhynchospora | Cyperaceae > Rhynchospora |
Sibling taxa | ||
Synonyms | Phaeocephalum pusillum, R. intermixta | Schoenus ciliaris, Phaeocephalum ciliatum, R. ciliata, R. rappiana |
Name authority | Chapman ex M. A. Curtis: Amer. J. Sci. Arts, ser. 2, 7: 409. (1849) | (Michaux) C. Mohr: Contr. U.S. Natl. Herb. 6: 408. (1901) |
Web links |