Bulbostylis funckii (Steud.) C. B. Clarke

Bulbostylis funckii is the only heterocarpous species in Bulbostylis, the achenes of proximal spikelets being nearly twice as large and more tumid than those of aerial spikelets.

Herbs, annual, densely cespitose, scapose, delicate, low. Culms 5–10(–15) cm. Leaves 1/2 as long as to slightly exceeding scapes; sheaths stramineous to reddish, dilated, strongly ribbed; blades filiform, 0.5 mm wide, flat or involute, glabrous, margins distantly scabrid. Inflorescences: spikelets of 2 sorts, one sterile, 1(–2) atop filiform scapes or short-stalked to sessile at plant base, red-brown with green midribs, lanceoloid to lance-cylindric, 5–7 mm; the other fertile, the florets developing in sheath axils at culm base; leafy involucral bracts 1, appearing as extension of culm, or absent. Spikelets: scales of sterile spikelets lanciform, keeled, midrib excurrent at mucro; fertile scales saccate, strongly ribbed, distended by achenes. Flowers: stamens 2; anthers narrowly oblong, 0.5 mm. Achenes pale, lustrous, broadly trigonous-obovoid to subglobose, the fertile 1.5 mm, the sterile 1 mm, faces slightly convex, rugulose, papillose; tubercle a small depressed or conic button. 2n = 20.

Ariz., N.Mex.; Mexico; Central America; South America.

Fruiting all year.

Sandy disturbed sites such as roadbanks, fields, meadows, town lots, and pastures, sometimes weedy in open sandy land; 0–3000m.

Isolepis funckii Steudel, Syn. Pl. Glumac. 2: 91. 1855; Bulbostylis tenuispicata (Boeckeler) Barros; Scirpus heterocarpus S. Watson; Stenophyllus funckii (Steudel) Britton

Bulbostylis funckii (Steud.) Clarke, Kew Bull. Add. Ser
8:26. 1908.
Isolepis Funckii Steud. Syn. Cyp. 91. 1855. (Venezuela.) Scirpus tenuispicatus Bock. Linnaea 36: 740. 1870. (Valle de Mexico.) Scirpus beterocarpus S. Wats. Proc. Am. Acad. 18: 171. 1883. (San Luis Potosi, Mexico.) Stenophyllus Funckii Britton, Bull. Torrey Club 21 : 30. 1894. Bulbostylis tenuispicata Barros, Anal. Mus. Argent. Ci. Nat. 41 : 338. 1945.
Cespitose annual, the filiform culms 3-12 cm. high, glabrous ; leaves similar, smooth to hispidulous, often equaling or exceeding the culms ; leaf-sheaths slightly fimbriate at the apex, usually obscured by the numerous, reduced basal spikelets ; inflorescence a single terminal, linear, acuminate spikelet 4-10 mm. long; scales dark brown with green keel, loosely attached to the axis, acute to mucronate, the lowermost often with an attenuate mucro; achene broadly obovate, 1 mm. long, stramineous to gray, deeply transverse-rugulose, the basal achenes larger (1.5 mm. long) with coarser, elongated vertical cells; tubercle narrowly to broadly conic; style slender, 1.5 mm. long; stamens 2, the anthers 0.4 mm. long.
Type locality : Venezuela.
Distribution: Venezuela; Santa Marta, Colombia; El Salvador; Mexico (Jalisco, Mexico [state], Orizaba, Chihuahua, San Luis Potosi) ; Arizona and New Mexico; Bolivia (Mandon 1410; fide Britton, Bull. Torrey Club 15: 103. 1888).