West Indian Fimbry

Fimbristylis sieberiana is a caespitose perennial herb that reaches up to 30-60 cm long with fibrous roots and a short rhizome. Culms are 1-2.5 mm diameter, terete below, and often compressed, grooved, and glabrous above. Leaves can reach up to 30 cm, flat or involute, with scabrous margins especially towards the apex and membranous sheaths. The inflorescence is 2-5 x 1-5 cm, and composed of 3-6 solitary terete, acutish, brown to greyish-brown, glabrous spikelets with winged rachis. Glumes are broadly ovate, slightly keeled, straw-coloured below, and light brown above with grey-tomentose apical parts. The fruit is a biconvex, globose or broadly obovoid, white or yellowish nutlet that reaches up to 1.4-1.6 x 1-1.2 mm.

Nile Valley North of Nubia (Location: Delta), Nile Valley North of Nubia (Location: Fayium), Libyan Desert Oases, Nubian Desert Oases, Gebel Oweinat, Isthmic Desert, Galala Desert, Arabian Desert.

Spain, Crete, Cyprus, North Africa, Palestine, Syria, Turkey, Caucasus, Iraq, Arabia, Iran, Afghanistan, tropical and southern Africa, Malaysia, northern Australia.

Moist ground along canals, fields, gardens.

Perennial

Height: 30-60 cm

ferruginea: rusty-brown in colour

Fimbristylis ferruginea (L.) Vahl, Enum. 2: 291. 1805
Scirpus ferrugineus L. Sp. PI. 50. 1753.
Scirpus debilis Lam. Tab. Encyc. 1 : 141. 1791, fide Vahl, Enum. 2: 292 (1805). Not 5". debilis
Pursh, 1814. Scirpus bonariensis Poir. in Lam. Encyc. 6: 763. 1804. (Argentina.) Scirpus ferrugineus Poir. in Lam. Encyc. 6: 780. 1804. (Jamaica.) Isolepis ferruginea Schlecht. & Cham. Linnaea 6: 27. 1831. Fimbristylis sublateralis Steud. Syn. Cyp. 114. 1855. (Guatemala.) Fimbristylis ferruginea var. compacta Kiikenth. Repert. Sp. Nov. 23: 196. 1926. (Cuba.)
Perennial ; culms clustered, filiform to 2 mm. wide with thickened bases ; leaves much shorter than the culm, frequently lacking, the sheaths pale brown to ferrugineous ; rays of the umbel usually short (0.5-2 cm. long), forming a compact cluster; spikelets commonly 5-10, rarely solitary, ovoid-oblong, 8-20 mm. long; scales ovate, acute or slightly mucronulate, chestnut-brown, dull, puberulent toward the apex; achenes obovate, lenticular, 1.5 mm. long, slightly apiculate, dull yellow, opaque, narrowed at the base, the surface lightly reticulate with minute isodiametric cells, the base with a brown stipe jointed above the insertion of the filaments ; style bifid, flattened and prominently fimbriate, scarcely enlarged at the base, the branches very short; stamens 3, the anthers 1.0-1.5 mm. long.
Type locality : "In Jamaicae paludibus maritimis."
Distribution : Cuba, Bahama Islands, and southward in the West Indies ; Yucatan ; tropical South America ; tropics of the Old World.

Fimbristylis ferruginea is a species of fimbry known by the common names rusty sedge and West Indian fimbry. The plant is common along the coast line and estuaries of Australia. It is also native to parts of Africa, southern Asia, and South America. The flowers are a distinctive rusty brown color appearing on a single spikelet from May to July.