| Author | Small | |
| Distribution | Southern outer Coastal Plain, including Carolina Beach State Park; ranges northward only to Carteret County, though disjunct into MD and DE. First discovered in NC in 1990 on Camp Lejeune in Onslow County.
Coastal Plain, NC to central FL and southern MS; disjunct to DE, MD, and Belize. | |
| Abundance | Rare and local. The NCNHP database has 11 records, all current and most in good to excellent condition; the majority are at Camp Lejeune. This is a State Special Concern species. | |
| Habitat | Natural depression ponds, sinkhole ponds, interdune ponds. In NC, so far only from such small and essentially natural ponded habitats, rare on the landscape in acreage. |
| Phenology | Flowering and fruiting July-September. | |
| Identification | In the field Harper's Beaksedge resembles R. cephalantha var. attenuata, but that plant occurs in NC only in the Sandhills and inhabits seepages (vs. the outer Coastal Plain and seasonally ponded habitats). Harper's Beaksedge has a unique feature: the terminal spikelet cluster is separated from the next lower one by a curved (not straight) stalk. | |
| Taxonomic Comments | None
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 | S2 | |
| Global Rank | G4? | |
| State Status | SC-V | |
| US Status | | |
| USACE-agcp | OBL link |
| USACE-emp | OBL link |
