Rhynchospora colorata (L.) H. Pfeiff.

Rhynchospora colorata is a slender and clonal version of R. latifolia, with a distinct preference for more basic substrates; involucral bracts are very slender and have a longer portion of green, usually reaching well proximal to midbract.

See also 16. Rhynchospora latifolia.

Plants perennial, cespitose or solitary, to 70 cm; rhizomes slender, scaly, to 2 mm thick. Culms erect, slender, leafy-based, trigonous, several-ribbed. Leaves spreading to erect, overtopped by culm; blades narrowly linear, proximally flattened, 0.5–3 mm wide, apex tapering, trigonous. Inflorescences terminal, solitary, headlike, dense, white, leafy-involucrate; involucral bracts several, flaring to recurved, white from broadened base nearly to median, then green to tapered tip, longer bracts 13 cm × 2–7 mm. Spikelets white, ovoid, 5–7 mm, apex acute; fertile scales many, boat shaped, sharply curved keeled, 3–4(–5) mm, apex acute or blunt. Flowers: perianth absent. Fruits several per spikelet, 1.5–1.7(–2) mm; body yellow to mahogany, broadly pyriform obovoid, tumidly lenticular, 1 × 0.5–0.7 mm, widest at apex, margins thickened, interrupted at base of tubercle; surfaces transversely undulate rugose, ridges contiguous, of short linear papillae; tubercle broadly triangular, 0.5–0.6 mm, gray crustaceous, apex short acuminate. 2n = 12.

Ala., Ark., Fla., Ga., La., Miss., N.C., S.C., Tex., Va.; Mexico; West Indies; Central America; South America (French Guiana).

Fruiting late spring–summer.

Sands, peats, and silt of interdunal swales, shores, meadowy swales, and marsh edges, sometimes fens, usually on circumneutral or basic substrates; 0–300m.

Schoenus coloratus Linnaeus, Sp. Pl. 1: 43. 1753; Dichromena cephalotes Britton; D. colorata (Linnaeus) Hitchcock; D. leucocephala Michaux; Rhynchospora drummondiana Steudel; Scirpus cephalotes Walter 1788, not Linnaeus 1762

Rhynchospora colorata, also known as starrush whitetop, white star sedge and white-topped sedge, is a perennial sedge with white bracts, giving it the appearance of white petals with long, green points. It is native to southeastern North America, from Virginia west to New Mexico in the United States, and south into the Caribbean islands.

The inflorescence is a dense cluster of small spikes, each containing several tiny flowers. It sits on top of 3–10 green and white bracts that grow to 10–15 cm long. These bracts look much like leaves, but the actual leaves arise from the base of the plant.