Vascular Plants of North Carolina
Account for Pasture Flatsedge - Cyperus brevifolioides   Thieret & Delahoussaye
Members of Cyperaceae:
Members of Cyperus with account distribution info or public map:
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Section 5 » Family Cyperaceae
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AuthorThieret & Delahoussaye
DistributionMostly Mountains; disjunct to the Coastal Plain. Specimens at NCU were annotated again in November 2021.

Native to tropical regions. Exotic occurrence from CT and NY south to GA, MS, and AR.
AbundanceUncommon in Mountains; rare in the Coastal Plain.
HabitatRiver sandbars and shores, meadows, pastures, margins of brackish marshes.
PhenologyFlowering and fruiting July-October.
IdentificationPasture Flatsedge grows in small colonies from slender horizontal rhizomes. Stems stand erect, up to a foot tall, topped by a soiltary, pale green, hemispherical or spherical head. In the field plants look pale gray-green or glaucescent. It is a rather handsome plant. Frequently mislabeled or misidentified as C. brevifolius. Most reliable ID character is achene length: usually >1.6 mm vs. <1.4 mm in C. brevifolius.
Taxonomic CommentsA synonym is Kyllinga gracillima.

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 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.
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B.A. SorrieDare mainland, roadside edge of Mashoes Marshes, Sept 2013. DarePhoto_non_natural
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