Eleocharis mitracarpa Steud.

Tufted perennial, 30-100 cm. Rhizome creeping, 1.5-2.5 mm diam., sturdy, aerial stems rising before nodes. Stem 3-5 mm diam., easily compressed, smooth, greyish green, finely grooved, with 15-20 veins on both sides, 37-38 vascular bundles in cross section. Open sheaths up to 10 mm; lower closed sheath to 50 mm, reddish or yellowish brown, scarious, mouth oblique; upper to 20 cm, base usually reddish, distal part yellowish or pale brown, mouth straight or slightly oblique; blades 0 or minute tip. Spike 15-30 x 4-7 mm, mostly elongate ovoid, acutish, with c. 100 or more loosely imbricating glumes; two basal glumes 1-3 mm, sterile, equal, apex rounded, margins scarious; glumes 3.5-4.5 x c. 1.3 mm, lanceolate, narrowly cymbiform, weakly keeled, apex of lower obtuse, of upper acute, mid-nerve not reaching apex, sides brown or reddish brown, margins widely scarious. Perianth bristles usually 4 (undeveloped in type specimen), smaller or equalling the nut (incl. stylopodium), rather weak, unaequal, pale brown; stamens 3, anthers 1.5-3 mm; stigmas 2. Nut 1.3-1.6 x 1-1.3 mm (excl. stylopodium), ovoid, thickly biconvex, yellow or brown, surface glossy, finely or obscurely reticulate; stylopodium 0.4-0.9 x 0.5-0.8 mm, as high as wide, globose, or wider, mammiform, yellow, trabeculate, distinctly constricted from nut.

Distribution: S parts of European Russia, Turkey, Caucasus, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan; perhaps, more widespread.

Fl. Per.: April - May.

In shallow water in marshlands and in lakes, 500-2500 m.

E. turcomanica Zinserl., in Kom., Fl. URSS, 3: 583. 1935. E. argyrolepidoides Zinserl., l.c.: 584. 1935; - Hooper in Townsend & Guest, Fl. Iraq, 8: Pl. 83. 1985.