low spikesedge
Kyllinga pumila
Diagnostic 2
"Annuals; roots many, fibrous, brown, tufted; culms many, densely caespitose, rigid, stiff, obliquely erect, trigonous without basal thickening, 5-35 cm tall. Leaves few, acuminate, shorter or longer than culms, scabrid in upper half margin, gramineous, flat, 2-3 mm broad; lowermost 1-2 sheath leafless, multinerved, ovate lanceolate, purplish red; uppermost sheaths tubular with transversely truncate mouth and purple dotted membranous sides. Inflorescence spikate, 3 (-1), confluent, compact with central one ovate, oblong ovate or cylindrical, 6-10 mm long, laterals shorter, subglobose; bracts 3-4, leaf like obliquely divergent without dilated base, the longest up to 8 cm long. Spikelets numerous, lanceolate, compressed, usually 1 flowered, 2-2.2 x 1 mm. first glumes linear or subulate, membranous, nerveless, c. 0.3 mm long, less than c. 0.2 mm broad; second glumes ovate, membranous, faintly 1-nerved in each half, 0.8-0.9 x 0.3 mm; third and fourth glume 3 nerved in each half, green, usually spinulose with purple marked keel and short excurved or erect mucro. Stamens 2 with broad filaments; anther short, c. 0.2 mm long. Style long, slender. Nut elliptic-oblong or obovoid, stipitate, apiculate, yellowish brown, puncticulate, ½ length of glumes, 1 x 0.5 -0.6 mm."
Sources and Credits
- (c) dogtooth77, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC-SA), https://www.flickr.com/photos/53817483@N00/10362652186/
- (c) India Biodiversity Portal, some rights reserved (CC BY), http://eol.org/data_objects/26341077
