Baldwin's Beak Sedge

Plants perennial, cespitose, 40–100 cm; rhizomes absent. Culms stiffly erect to ascending, linear, leafy toward base, sharply trigonous, angles scabrid. Leaves shorter than culm; basal leaves forming strong rosette, short linear, flat, 3–5 mm wide, distal more widely spaced, narrower, apex short acuminate, trigonous. Inflorescences: spikelet clusters 1(–2), if 2 then closely set; terminal cluster mostly dense, hemispheric; proximalmost leafy bract subulate, much exceeding clusters. Spikelets dark red brown, ovoid, (4–)5–6 mm, apex acute; fertile scales ovate, mostly 4–4.5 mm, apex excurved cuspidate. Flowers: bristles 12, reaching to or slightly beyond tubercle tip, antrorsely barbellate. Fruits 1–2 per spikelet, 3–3.5(–3.7) mm; body dark brown with paler center, dull, broadly ellipsoid-lenticular, 2–2.5 × 1.8–2 mm, smooth, margins flowing to tubercle; tubercle flat, concavely triangular, 0.7–1(–1.2) mm.

Ala., Fla., Ga., La., Miss., N.C., S.C.

Fruiting spring–fall.

Sandy peats in low savannas, pine flatwoods, seeps, and bogs; 0–100m.

Phaeocephalum baldwinii (A. Gray) House

Rhynchospora baldwinii, known by the common name of Baldwin's beaksedge, is a member of the sedge family, Cyperaceae. It is found in riverbanks and swampland near the coasts of the southeastern United States, as far west as New Orleans and as far north as Morehead City in North Carolina.