Log In
New Account
Sitemap
Home
Fauna Database
Search Collections
Map Search
Image Search
Browse Images
Inventories
Sky Island Provinces
MABA Inventory Sites
Interactive Tools
Dynamic Checklist
Dynamic Key
Cyperus prolixus
Kunth
Family:
Cyperaceae
Mosquito Flat Sedge
FNA
Resources
Gordon C. Tucker*, Brian G. Marcks* & J. Richard Carter * in Flora of North America (vol. 23)
Herbs, perennial; rhizomes 3-20 cm × 1-2 cm, indurate. Culms stoutly trigonous, thickened, 50-300 cm × 5-30 mm, basally indurate, glabrous. Leaves V-shaped, with cross ribs, 40-130 cm × 10-15 mm, margins and keel scabrid. Inflorescences: spikes appressed-ascending, narrowly cylindric, (2-)3-45 mm × (4-)7-10 mm; rays (5-)9-12, 2-22(-30) cm; 2d order rays distinctly flattened, 1-10 cm; 3d order rays flattened, 0.5-3 cm; rachis 2.5-4 cm; bracts (6-)9-10, ascending at 45-75°, V- or inversely W-shaped, (5-)15-90 cm × 0.5-20 mm; rachilla persistent, wings 0.2-0.4 mm wide. Spikelets (4-)10-35, appressed-ascending, compressed, linear, 7-12(-15) × 0.6-1.2 mm; floral scales deciduous, 6-20, marginally clear, laterally brown, medially green, laterally 2-3-ribbed, medially 1-ribbed, oblong-ovate, (3.2-) 3.8-4.3 × 1.2-1.7 mm, apex spreading, acute to obtuse, mucronulate. Flowers: anthers 0.7-0.9 mm, connective apex bright red, oblong, to 0.1 mm; styles 0.8-1.3 mm; stigmas 2-3.3 mm. Achenes brown, sessile, narrowly ellipsoid, 1.8-2.5 × 0.8-1.3 mm, apex ± acute, not apiculate, surfaces puncticulate.
Fruiting summer. Coastal marshes; 0-10 m; La.; Mexico; Central America; South America.
Cyperus prolixus produces large plants, similar in habit to C. giganteus and C. papyrus but easily distinguished by flattened rays.
Open Interactive Map
Click to Display
71 Total Images