Sandy Field Hair Sedge

Herbs, annual, densely cespitose, scapose. Culms (5–) 10–20 cm. Leaves 1/2–2/3 length of culms; sheaths brownish to stramineous, glabrous or scabrid along ribs; blades spreading-recurved, filiform, 0.5 mm wide, involute, margins and adaxial ribs hispidulous. Inflorescences: scapes erect to spreading, wiry, angularly ribbed, 0.6–1 mm thick, hispidulous; spikelets in dense, terminal, top-shaped to hemispheric involucrate heads, 1–1.5 cm wide; longer involucral bracts with setaceous blades many times exceeding heads, gradually dilating to scarious-bordered, entire sheaths. Spikelets usually greenish or dull brown, oblong to lance-ovoid, 3–5 mm; fertile scales ovate, keeled, 3–4 mm, abaxially hirtellous, midrib excurrent forming excurved mucro, scabrid. Flowers: stamens 1; anthers oblong, 0.5 mm. Achenes pale or gray brown, broadly trigonous obovoid, rather sharply 3-ribbed, 1 mm, faces flat or somewhat concave, finely transversely rugose; tubercle a depressed-conic button. 2n = 30.

Fla., Ga., N.C., S.C.; West Indies (Cuba).

Fruiting summer–fall.

Moist sands or sandy peats of sandhill swales, fields, pineland savanna, and waste areas, often weedy; 0–200m.

Scirpus stenophyllus Elliott, Sketch Bot. S. Carolina 1: 83. 1816; Dichroma caespitosa (Muhlenberg) Sprengel; D. cespitosum Muhlenberg; Fimbristylis stenophyllus (Elliott) Alain; Isolepis stenophyllus (Elliott) Torrey; Stenophyllus cespitosus (Muhlenberg) Rafinesque

Bulbostylis stenophylla (Ell.) Clarke, Kew Bull Add. Ser. 8 : 26. 1908.
Scirpus stenophyllus Ell. Bot. S. C. & Ga. 1 : 83. 1816.
Dichroma cespitosum Muhl. Descr. Gram. 14. 1817. (Georgia.)
Dichromena caespitosa Spreng. Syst. 1 : 202. 1825.
Stenophyllus cespitosus Raf. Neog. 4. 1825.
Isolepis stenophylla Torr. Ann. Lye. N. Y. 3 : 353. 1836.
Stenophyllus stenophyllus Britton, Bull. Torrey Club 21 : 30. 1894.
Densely tufted annual ; culms capillary to coarsely filiform, 0.5-2 dm. high, sulcate, glabrous to hirtellous ; leaves capillary, channeled, usually shorter than the culms, the sheath stramineous to lucid pale brown ; inflorescence terminal, capitate, the 4-8 linear spikelets much exceeded by 3 or 4 elongate, capillary bracts ; scales broadly ovate, dull brown, strongly keeled, aristate, hirtellous ; achenes sharply trigonous with concave faces, 1 mm. long, 0.7 mm. wide, dark brown, the transverse undulate lines often heightened at maturity by grayish wax-like deposits; tubercle reddish-brown, conic; style slender, 1.0 mm. long below the branches; stamen 1, the anther 1.0-1.5 mm. long.
Type locality: "Around Beaufort [S. C], common. James Island."
Distribution : Sandy pinelands : North Carolina to Florida ; Pinar del Rio, Cuba (Ekman 16765).