Gulf Pipewort

Eriocaulon koernickianum is the most diminutive of our eriocaulons, widely disjunct in Georgia but seemingly most abundant on Piedmont granites.

Herbs, perennial, 5--8 cm. Leaves linear-attenuate, 2--5 cm, apex subulate to blunt. Inflorescences: scape sheaths as long as leaves, inflated; scapes filiform, 0.5 mm wide, 3--4-ribbed; heads dark gray or gray-green with rims of bracts and perianth pale, nearly globose or short-oblong, 3--4 mm wide, soft; receptacle glabrous; outer involucral bracts usually not reflexed, not obscured by bracteoles and perianth, straw-colored, very lustrous, broadly oblong to suborbiculate, 1--1.25 mm, margins nearly entire, apex rounded, glabrous; inner bracts, receptacular bracteoles dark gray, gray-green, or gray-brown, very lustrous, oblong to cuneate, obliquely keeled, 1.5 mm, margins slightly erose, apex acute to obtuse, apiculate, with a few white, club-shaped hairs. Staminate flowers: sepals 2, grayish, linear-curvate, 1--1.5 mm, apex with a few white, club-shaped hairs abaxially, marginally; androphore broadly club-shaped; petals 2, low, toothlike, nearly equal, apex with club-shaped hairs; stamens 4; anthers black. Pistillate flowers: sepals 2, gray, linear-curvate, 1 mm, apex with scattered hairs abaxially, hairs pale, club-shaped, otherwise glabrous; petals 2, yellow-white, stipitate, broadly suborbiculate-rhombic, 1 mm, apex with white, club-shaped hairs abaxially; pistil 2-carpellate. Seeds deep reddish brown, broadly ovoid or ellipsoid, 0.5 mm, often indistinctly reticulate or rugulose, papillate.

Ark., Ga., Okla., Tex.

Flowering spring--early fall.

Moist to wet sands and sandy silts of seeps, particularly over and around arenaceous outcrops; of conservation concern; 0--1000m.

Eriocaulon koernickianum, common names dwarf pipewort or gulf pipewort, is a plant species native to Oklahoma, Arkansas, Georgia and Texas. It occurs in moist, sandy acidic soils in seeps and bogs.

Eriocaulon koernickianum is an herb up to 8 cm (3.2 inches) tall, reproducing sexually and also by means of lateral vegetative shoots. Leaves are narrow, up to 5 cm (2 inches) long. Flowers are clustered into a head at the top of a long flowering stalk. Heads are up to 4 mm in diameter, gray to olive, lacking the ciliate hairs common in many other species of the genus.