Rhynchospora torreyana

Plants perennial, cespitose, 50-100 cm; rhizomes absent. Culms ascending-excurved, leafy, ± terete, slender. Leaves ascending, overtopped by culm; blades narrowly linear, proximally flat, 2-3 mm wide, apex trigonous, tapering. Inflorescences: spikelet clusters (1-)2-3, widely spaced, open to dense, broadly to narrowly turbinate, branches ascending to slightly spreading, capillary; leafy bracts setaceous-tipped, overtopping all but distal clusters. Spikelets light red-brown, ovoid, 3.5-5 mm, apex acuminate; fertile scales ovate, 2.5-3.5 mm, apex acute, midrib excurrent as cusp or mucro. Flowers: perianth bristles 6, reaching at most 2/3 length of fruit body, antrorsely barbellate. Fruits 1-4(-5) per spikelet, 2 mm; body brown, strongly compressed, obovoid-ellipsoid, 1.4-1.6 × 1-1.2 mm, margins flowing to tubercle; surfaces finely transversely rugose, intervals with narrow vertical alveolae; tubercle flat, low-triangular, 0.2-0.3(-0.5) mm.

Fruiting summer-fall. Sands and peats of low meadows, savannas, flatwoods, pond shores, ditch banks; 0-200 m; Ala., Conn., Del., Fla., Ga., Md., Mass., N.J., N.Y., N.C., R.I., S.C., Va.

Cespitose, very slender, 5-10 dm; lvs 1-2 mm wide; cymes 2-4, freely branched, corymbiform, the terminal one 1-3 cm wide, the lateral smaller, on exsert peduncles; spikelets mostly pediceled, narrowly ovoid, 3-4 mm, castaneous, with 3-6 fls and 1-5 frs; bristles 6, antrorsely barbellate, to 1 mm; achenes castaneous, very flat, obovate, 1.3-1.6 נ1-1.2 mm, with ca 12 closely spaced transverse ridges; tubercle depressed-triangular, 0.3-0.4 mm. Wet sandy or peaty soil on the coastal plain; e. Mass. to Ga.

Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.

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