Australian Tropical Rainforest Plants - Online edition

Cyperus hyalinus Vahl


Grass
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Herbarium specimen. © CSIRO
Family

Vahl, M.H. (1805) Enumeratio Plantarum 2: 329. Type: Habitat in India orientali. Rottler.

Stem

Annual with fibrous roots; stems triquetrous, smooth, 3-20 cm tall.

Leaves

Leaves weak, flat, scabrid along the margins in the upper part, 1-3.5 mm wide.

Flowers

Inflorescence simple; involucral bracts 3-6, longer one much longer than the inflorescence, up to 20 cm long; rays 3-6, with 5-20 spikelets; spikes loose to rather dense, 8-12 x 8-10 mm,; rachis 4-winged. Spikelets ovate to oblong and strongly compressed, 4-7 -flowered, 4-8 x 2-3 mm, rachilla strongly flexuose and strongly winged. Glumes membranous, broadly ovate to ovate with the keel green, scabrous and strongly 3-nerved, with 3 prominent nerves on either side of keel. Style 2-fid.

Fruit

Nut biconvex, laterally compressed, suborbicular to elliptic, truncate to emarginate at apex, dark brown to blackish, 1.1-1.75 mm long.

Seedlings

Features not available.

Distribution and Ecology

Recorded in NEQ (near Chillagoe) and CYP (Torres Strait). Altitudinal range from 300-400 m. Growths in deciduous vine thicket on calcareous substrates. Also from Africa, India and Malesia.

Synonyms

Queenslandiella hyalina (Vahl) F.Ballard, Icones Plantarum [Hooker's] Edn. Ser. 5 33: t. 3208 (1935).

RFK Code
4285
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