| Author | (L.) Vahl | |
| Distribution | Coastal Plain, Sandhills, and Piedmont (uncommon westward); one known Mountain record (Clay County).
NJ, southern IL, and southeastern OK, south to northern FL and southeastern TX. | |
| Abundance | Common throughout, except uncommon in the upper half of the Piedmont and very rare in the Mountains. The scarcity of collection records for much of the northern Coastal Plain is symbolic of the general scarcity of collections of graminoids from these counties, in relation to the abundance of eastern VA counties with collection records. The State Rank is clearly S5. | |
| Habitat | Wet streamhead ecotones, wet pine savannas and flatwoods, magins of pocosins, seepage bogs, margins of beaver ponds, wet roadside ditches and powerlines. | |
| Phenology | Flowering and fruiting July-September. | |
| Identification | A generally common beaksedge that should be learned by field botanists as a comparison point for other species. It is a coarser plant than R. capitellata, its spikelet clusters larger and tending to arch outward and often causing the stem to lean. Its seed bodies are much longer (1.5-2.0 mm long vs. 1.2-1.5 mm) than in that species. | |
| Taxonomic Comments | A western entity occurs in LA-AR-OK-TX and has been treated as var. angusta Gale or recently as a full species -- R. angusta (Gale) Sorrie, Weakley, and LeBlond.
Members of the genus Rhynchospora -- mainly called beaksedges but also called beakrushes -- are mostly Coastal Plain in distribution and are important members of our longleaf pine savannas, flatwoods, streamheads, depression ponds, Carolina bays, and beaver ponds. They vary from small and wiry to large and coarse. Keys concentrate on features of the achenes (seeds) and the shape and arrangement of the flower clusters (spikelets). The seeds may or not have bristles at their base; bristle number, length, and toothing are critical characters. Size and shape of the seed beaks is also critical. The drawings in Godfrey & Wooten (1979) are extremely helpful. The genus now includes Dichromena, the white-topped sedges. | |
| Other Common Name(s) | None | |
| State Rank | S4 [S5] | |
| Global Rank | G5 | |
| State Status | | |
| US Status | | |
| USACE-agcp | OBL link |
| USACE-emp | OBL link |
