Rhynchospora pusilla |
Rhynchospora grayi |
|
---|---|---|
|
Gray's beaksedge |
|
Habit | Plants perennial, densely cespitose, 15–50(–60) cm; rhizomes absent. | Plants perennial, cespitose, 10–100 cm; rhizomes absent. |
Culms | erect or arching, leafy toward base, filiform, terete, wiry. |
erect or excurved, leafy, obscurely trigonous, slender, firm. |
Leaves | overtopped by culm; blades linear to filiform, channeled, 0.3–0.5 mm wide, margins deeply involute, apex setaceous. |
shorter than culms; blades spreading to ascending, linear, proximally flat, 2–4 mm wide, apex involute, then trigonous, subulate. |
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 1–4, loose to dense, broadly turbinate, lobed or hemispheric; peduncles and branches ascending; leafy bracts exceeding proximal, sometimes distal, clusters. |
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. |
light redbrown, ellipsoid or narrowly ovoid, 4–5 mm, apex acute to acuminate; fertile scales broadly ovate, 3.5–4.5 mm, apex acute or acuminate, apiculate. |
Flowers | perianth absent. |
perianth bristles mostly 6, reaching from fruit midbody to tubercle tip or beyond, 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, 2.5–3 mm; body dark brown, broadly, tumidly obovoid, 2–2.5 × 2–2.5 mm, apically buttressed to tubercle; surfaces finely transversely rugulose or nearly level, with fine transverse rows of pits or low papillae, often appearing nearly smooth; tubercle lowconic, 0.4–0.6 mm, apiculate. |
Rhynchospora pusilla |
Rhynchospora grayi |
|
Phenology | Fruiting summer–fall. | Fruiting spring–summer. |
Habitat | Moist sands, peats and silts of low meadows, savannas, bogs, seeps, pond shores | Sandy pinelands and sandhills, particularly in longleaf pine type |
Elevation | 0–300 m (0–1000 ft) | 0–300 m (0–1000 ft) |
Distribution |
AL; FL; GA; LA; MS; NC; SC; TX; Mexico; Central America; West Indies |
AL; FL; GA; LA; MS; NC; SC; TX; VA; West Indies
|
Discussion | Of all North American species of Rhynchospora, R. grayi appears best adapted to the xeric conditions found in the coarser sands of the longleaf pine-scrub oak–dominated yellow sandhills. Interestingly, it seems seldom to mix with its closest relative, R. megalocarpa, which is more often found in white sandhills. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
|
Source | FNA vol. 23, p. 220. | FNA vol. 23, p. 230. |
Parent taxa | Cyperaceae > Rhynchospora | Cyperaceae > Rhynchospora |
Sibling taxa | ||
Synonyms | Phaeocephalum pusillum, R. intermixta | Phaeocephalum grayi, R. distans, R. elliottii, Schoenus distans, Schoenus fuscus |
Name authority | Chapman ex M. A. Curtis: Amer. J. Sci. Arts, ser. 2, 7: 409. (1849) | Kunth: Enum. Pl. 2: 539. (1837) |
Web links |