Small Head Pipewort

Eriocaulon microcephalum is known in the flora only from one locality, Kern County, California; this was a collection by L. J. Xantus de Vesey in 1857--58 from "vicinity of Fort Tijon." It has not been found since. The specimen differs, however, in no way from those I have seen throughout the range, and in light of the number of Mexican western cordilleran plant species that have been continuously discovered in California, it seems best to include the species here.

Herbs, perennial, to 5 cm. Leaves: narrowly triangular-acuminate, 1.5--3 cm, apex narrow, blunt, calloused. Inflorescences: scape sheaths mostly shorter than longer leaves, dilated apically; scapes linear, 1 mm wide, distally 4--5-ribbed; mature heads pale, hemispheric to globose, 3--4 mm wide, soft; receptacle glabrous or sparsely pilose; involucral bracts erect or ascending, nearly covering head, yellow-white or yellow-brown, broadly obovate to suborbiculate, grading narrower inward, 2 mm, margins entire, erose with age, apex rounded, surfaces glabrous; receptacular bracteoles dark brown, narrowly obovate, 2 mm, margins entire, erose with age, apex obtuse, margins and abaxial surface with scattered, stubby, white, multicellular hairs. Staminate flowers: sepals 3, gray, cuneate-spatulate, 2 mm; apex shallowly 3-cleft, surfaces distally hairy, ciliolate, hairs white, stubby; androphore cylindric; petals 3, minute, unequal, white-ciliate; stamens 6; anthers nearly black. Pistillate flowers: sepals 3, gray, translucent, curved, keeled, 2 mm, apex rounded, apiculate, ciliate, hairy with white, blunt hairs; petals 3, yellow-white, oblong or narrowly spatulate, flat, 2 mm, apex rounded, blade adaxially pilose with translucent hairs, apically ciliate with white hairs; pistil 3-carpellate. Seeds rich red-brown, ovoid or ellipsoid, 0.6--0.8 mm, faintly reticulate with horizontally aligned rectangular alveolae.

Calif.; Mexico; Central America; South America.

Flowering summer--fall.

Moist boggy upland meadows (paramos), western-montane; above 1000m.

Eriocaulon microcephalum H.B.K. Nov. Gen. & Sp. 1: 253. 1816.
Plants very dwarf, densely tufted; stems very short; leaves tufted, spreading, lanceolate, 12 cm. long, 2-3 mm. wide at base, 1-1.5 mm. wide at the middle, subulate-narrowed toward apex, fenestrately 7-9-nerved, punctulate-pulverulent above or glabrate; peduncles. aggregate, 2-6, equaling the leaves or exceeding them, stramineousor greenish-flavescent, 1-4 cm. long, 3-costate, glabrous; sheaths lax, slightly shorter than the leaves, obliquely split at apex; heads loose-flowered, compressed in drying, 2-3.5 mm. in diameter, sparsely white-villose at the summit; involucral bractlets pale-stramineous or greenish-flavescent, obovate, very obtuse, glabrous; receptacle subglabrate; receptacular bractlets olivaceous-nigrescent at apex, whitish at base, obovate, with a prominent midrib, acute, puberulent at the summit on the back; staminate florets: very short-pedicellate; sepals 3, olivaceous-nigrescent, subspatulate, navicular, rather obtuse, connate into a spathe on the anterior side, pilose toward apex; corollalobes 3, slightly unequal, ovate-oblong, glanduliferous, slightly pilose; anthers 6, oigr< pistillate florets: sepals 3, grayish, lanceolate or obovate, acute, oavicular-carinate, pilose above, subalate on the back; petals 3, whitish or pale-stramineous, subequal, spatulate, son spongy, obtuse, glanduliferous (the gland borne at the very apex, above the tufl of hair!), tufted-pilose within.
Type i.i m a 1. 1 'i 'v : Between Loja and Mi . Pulla, at 2770 meters alt it ink. Loja, Ecuador > Humboldt 6* Bonpland).
Distribution: Kern County. California; Mexico to Costa Rica and Ecuador.