Capillary Hair Sedge

Herbs, annual or perennial, cespitose, slender. Culms to 40 cm, wiry. Leaves ¼–1/2 length of culms; sheaths stramineous to tan or brown, glabrous or scabrid on ribs; blades spreading to ascending, filiform, 0.5 mm wide, involute, margin glabrous or scabrid, abaxially glabrous or hirtellous. Inflorescences terminal, in simple or compound anthelae; scapes wiry, coarsely ribbed, glabrous or strumose-puberulent; longer primary involucral bracts with setaceous blades exceeding or exceeded by inflorescence. Spikelets red-brown to dark brown, lanceoloid to cylindric, longer than wide, 2–6 mm; fertile scales broadly ovate, keeled, 1–1.3 mm, apex acute, abaxially puberulent, midrib included or excurrent as mucro. Flowers: stamens 2–3; anthers narrowly oblong, 0.8–1 mm. Achenes mostly waxy gray, trigonous, obovoid, 0.8–1.5 mm, faces evenly papillate, finely rugulose or level; tubercle a small, dark, compressed-conic button.

Scirpus ciliatifolius Elliott, Sketch Bot. S. Carolina 1: 82. 1816; Isolepis ciliatifolius (Elliott) Torrey; Stenophyllus ciliatifolius (Elliott) C. Mohr

Bulbostylis ciliatifolia (Ell.) Fernald, Rhodora 40:391. 1938.
Scirpus ciliatif alius Ell. Bot. S. C. & Ga. 1 : 82. 1816.
Scirpus coarctatus Ell. Bot. S. C. & Ga. 1 : 83. 1816. (Beaufort, South Carolina.)
Isolepis ciliatifolins Torr. Ann. Lye. N. Y. 3 : 352. 1836.
Isolepis coarctata Torr. Ann. Lye. N. Y. 3 : 352. 1836.
Fimbristylis capillaris var. coarctata Britton, Bull. Torrey Club 15 : 102. 1888.
Stenophyllus capillaris coarctatus Britton, Bull. Torrey Club 21 : 30. 1894.
Stenophyllus ciliatifolins C. Mohr, Bull. Torrey Club 24: 22. 1897.
Stenophyllus coarctatus Britton ; Small, Fl. SE. U. S. 189. 1903.
Stenophyllus Carteri Britton; Small, Bull. N. Y. Bot. Card. 3: 420. 1905. (Dade County,
Florida.) Stenophyllus capillaris A. eiicapillaris b. coarctata H. Pfeiffer, Bot. Arch. 6: 187. 1924. Bulbostylis capillaris var. coarctata F. Macbr. Field Mus. Publ. Bot. 11 : 5. 1931. Bulbostylis coarctatus Fernald, Rhodora 40: 392. 1938.
Cespitose annual with glabrous culms 1.0-3.0 dm. tall; sheaths glistening brownstramineous, lightly asperulous, the apex prominently fimbriate ; leaves capillary, setulose ! on the margins ; inflorescence usually a loose compound umbel, but sometimes with the branches aggregated (5. coarctata) or even capitate (5. Carteri) ; spikelets 2-6 mm. long, subacute, dark brown, prominently keeled, frequently subglutinous and usually covered with short strigose pubescence; achenes obtusely trigonous, narrowly obovate (0.6-1.0 mm. long), often slightly 3-lobed at the apex, the convex sides minutely papillate to smooth, with a bluish-gray waxy covering when mature; style filiform, very short (ca. 0.3 mm. below the style-branches), not fimbriate; stamens 2 or 3, the anthers apiculate, 0.5-0.8 mm. long.
Type locality: "Grows in damp soils. Two miles from Beaufort [S. Carolina]." Distribution : Wet sandy pinelands, southeastern Virginia to Louisiana ; reported by Britton