Rhynchospora solitaria
onespike beaksedge
erect to ascending, narrowly linear, wandlike, terete, leafy proximal to middle.
erect to ascending;
blades proximally flat, 2.5–3.5 mm wide, apex tapering, tip abruptly blunt.
terminal, cluster of spikelets crowded, broadly turbinate to hemispheric, to 1.5 cm wide; leafy bracts linearsetaceous, slightly exceeding cluster.
orangebrown, lancefusiform, 6–7 mm, apex acuminate;
fertile scales lanceovate, 4–5 mm, apex acuminate with excurved awn to 1 mm.
bristles 3–4, some reaching tubercle tip, antrorsely barbellate.
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.
Rhynchospora solitaria
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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