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Electronic Flora of South Australia species Fact Sheet

Family: Cyperaceae
Cyperus pygmaeus

Citation: Rottb., Descr. & Icon. 20 (1773).

Synonymy: Not Applicable

Common name: Flat-sedge, dwarf sedge.

Description:
Small tufted densely leafy annual, rarely to 10 cm high and sometimes very small; stems triquetrous, sometimes very short or apparently absent; leaves grass-like, usually longer or much longer than the stems; involucral bracts 3 to several, leafy, much longer than the inflorescence.

Spikelets numerous in a single dense subglobose head, ovate-lanceolate, turgid, greenish, 3.5-5 mm long, c. 1.5 mm wide, 8-20-flowered; rhachilla very narrowly winged; glumes tightly packed, with short erect or spreading points, back 3-5-nerved, keeled, remainder nerveless, 1.5-2 mm long, narrowed at each end; style branches 2 or sometimes 3.

Nut obovoid, apiculate, cuneate to a small base, c. 0.8 x 0.4-0.5 mm, trigonous, sometimes slightly compressed or plano-convex, cream-white to light-brown, smooth, rather dull, about one-third as long as the glume.

Distribution:  Grows in wet or often temporarily wet places.

S.Aust.: NW, LE, EA, MU.   All mainland States.   Africa, the Mediterranean and Asia.

Conservation status: native

Flowering time: March — May and Aug.


SA Distribution Map based
on current data relating to
specimens held in the
State Herbarium of South Australia

Biology: The stem is sometimes very short or absent; in the latter case the heads are apparently sessile on the ground.

Author: Not yet available


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