Cyperus gracilis R.Br.

Brown, R. (1810) Prodromus Florae Novae Hollandiae : 213.

Slender Flat Sedge

Tufted perennial with a short rhizome. Stems slender, 4-angled, smooth, 5-40 cm tall.

Leaf blades filiform, 40-170 x 0.5-1 mm, shorter than the stems, with short brown sheaths.

Inflorescence subtended by 3 leaf-like involucral bracts 20-85 mm long. Spikelets 5-10 in a sessile terminal cluster or head, flattened, oblong-lanceolate, 8-30 -flowered. Glumes 2-2.5 mm long with 3-4 prominent nerves each side of keel. Ovary about 0.5 mm long. Style and stigmas less than 1 mm long.

Nut obovoid, trigonous, about 1 mm diam. Dark brown to blackish, and distinctly truncate at the apex with style remnants persistent, nut to hardly shorter than the glume.

Features not available.

Occurs in NEQ, CEQ and south to New South Wales. Altitudinal range from 160-410 m. Grows in Eucalypt open forest, deciduous vine thicket and Eucalypt woodland. Also occurs in New Caledonia.

Sometimes a weed of cultivation.