Pale Spike Rush

The varieties of Eleocharis flavescens are difficult to delimit, especially in the south, and identifications of some specimens to variety are problematic.

Plants with creeping rhizomes 0.5–1 mm thick. Culms 3–42 cm × 0.3–0.6 mm. Leaves: distal leaf sheaths often disintegrating, thinly membranous-translucent, inflated distally, often wrinkled, apex blunt. Spikelets ellipsoid, 1.5–9 × 1–3.5 mm, apex acute to acuminate; proximal scale without flower, not amplexicaulous; floral scales to 65, 5–7 per mm of rachilla, loosely appressed to appressed, elliptic, 1–3 × 0.4–1.6 mm, membranous, apex acute. Flowers: perianth bristles (0–)5–8, typically 7, white to stramineous, spinules dense to few; styles 2-fid, rarely 3-fid. Achenes stramineous to green or dark brown, biconvex, rarely trigonous, obovoid to obpryiform, 0.4–1.1 × 0.3–0.8 mm, very finely reticulate at 40X. Tubercles whitish to stramineous or green, 0.2–0.7 × 0.2–0.4 mm, apex acute to acuminate.

Scirpus flavescens Poiret in J. Lamarck et al., Encycl. 6: 756. 1804