Fringed Beak Sedge

Plants perennial, cespitose, 30–90 cm; rhizomes absent. Culms erect or ascending, terete to obscurely trigonous, multiribbed, densely leafy based, slender, stiff, papillose to scabrid puberulent. Leaves forming strong rosette, distal widely spaced, much exceeded by scape; basal leaf blades short linear, flat, 4–6 mm wide, culm leaf blades narrower, longer, all ciliate, apex bluntly acute. Inflorescences terminal; spikelet cluster 1, crowded, hemispheric, often lobed, to 2 cm wide; bracts strongly ciliate distally; longer leafy bracts exceeding cluster. Spikelets dark red brown, 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: bristles 6, some vestigial, none reaching past fruit midbody, antrorsely barbellate. Fruits 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 low triangular, 0.5 mm, often apiculate.

Ala., Fla., Ga., La., Miss., N.C., S.C.

Fruiting late spring–fall.

Sands and peats in bogs, seeps, depressions in savannas, and low open pinelands; 0–100m.

Schoenus ciliaris Michaux, Fl. Bor.-Amer. 1: 36. 1803; Phaeocephalum ciliatum (Michaux) House; Rhynchospora ciliata Vahl; R. rappiana Small

Rhynchospora ciliaris, known by the common name of fringed beaksedge, is a member of the sedge family, Cyperaceae. It is a perennial herb, found in wetlands of the southeastern United States, from New Orleans to Morehead City.

Rhynchospora ciliaris grows approximately 36 inches tall, and may be found in bogs, seeps, or depressions in open pastures or pinelands. Its dark brown spikelets bloom from May through November.