| Author | (Salzmann ex Steudel) Dorr | |
| Distribution | More-or-less throughout the state, with gaps in the western and middle Coastal Plain, as well as the northern Mountains.
Pantropical, north to NY, MO, and KS. | |
| Abundance | Frequent to perhaps common, but often overlooked due to its small size and all-green coloration. | |
| Habitat | Moist lawns, roadsides, ditches, meadows, lake and river shores. | |
| Phenology | Flowering and fruiting July-October. | |
| Identification | Low Spikesedge is 5 inches to one foot tall, multi-stemmed, with a single densely flowered head at the stem summits. The heads usually have 1-2 basal lobes. Female scales (and thus head color) are green (vs. white in C. sesquiflorus). | |
| Taxonomic Comments | Synonyms include C. tenuifolius and Kyllinga pumila, names long used in manuals.
The genus Cyperus is mostly tropical and warm-temperate in distribution; thus, in NC it is much commoner in the Coastal Plain than in the Mountains and Piedmont. Most species have 1-few flowering stems (culms) from grasslike basal leaves, plus a few stem leaves. At the summit is an inflorescence of very open and branched, or tightly packed, spikes, varying among species from brown to golden brown to straw-color to reddish. The arrangement of the spikelets is important, whether like a hand (digitate) or in paired or alternate rows (pinnate); as is the shape of the achene (seed), whether bi-convex in cross-section or triangular. As a group, Cyperus tends to be weedy and readily enters disturbed ground; this is true for many natives as well as all the aliens. In recent years, following DNA research, the genus has incorporated several genera that in RAB (1968) or other manuals were separate: Hemicarpha, Lipocarpha, and Kyllinga. | |
| Other Common Name(s) | Annual Greenhead Sedge, Slender-leaf Spikesedge | |
| State Rank | S5 | |
| Global Rank | G5 | |
| State Status | | |
| US Status | | |
| USACE-agcp | | |
| USACE-emp | | |
