Coastal Plain Spike Rush

Eleocharis retroflexa (Poir.) Urban, Symb. Ant 2 : 165. 1900.
Scirpus retroflexus Poir. in Lam. Encyc. 6: 753. 1804. (Puerto Rico.) Cyperus depauperatus Vahl, Enum. 2: 305. 1805. (West Indies.) Baeothryon retroflexum A. Dietr. Sp. PI. 2 : 93. 1833. Eleocharis depauperata Kunth, Enum. PI. 2 : 140. 1837.
Chaetocyperus polymorphus var. « depauperatus Nees in Mart. Fl. Bras. 2^: 94. 1842. Chaetocyperus niveus Liebm. Vidensk. Selsk. Skr. V. 2: 242. 1851. (Probably from Costa Rica.) Chaetocyperus viviparus Liebm. Vidensk. Selsk. Skr. V. 2: 242. 1851. (Nicaragua.) Chaetocyperus rugulosus Nees, Bonplandia 3: 86. 1855. (Panama.)
Eleocharis Chaetaria sensu Britton, Jour. N. Y. Micr. Soc. 5 : 105. 1889. Not E. Chaetaria R. & S. 1817.
Cespitose, often proliferous annual (?) with fibrous roots ; culms green, filiform, usually recurved, 2-2.5 cm. long, flattened to deeply quadrangular-sulcate, obscurely punctate ; sheath stramineous to reddish, obtuse, scarious and inflated at the summit; spikelets fewto manyflowered, the scales usually spreading in fruit; scales green, keeled, obtuse to acute, often with chestnut to reddish-brown sides; style trifid; achene 1.0-1.2 mm. long, trigonous, cancellate, costate, obovoid to urceolate, white or stramineous; style-base light brown, as wide and one-third as long as the body of the achene, pyramidal-acuminate, the angles decurrent
on the costae of the achene ; bristles white, shorter than the achene.
Type locality : Puerto Rico.
Distribution: Alabama; West Indies; Central America from British Honduras southward; Colombia ; Venezuela ; Dutch Guiana ; Brazil.