Long's Bulrush

Although large populations of Scirpus longii exist, collections are rarely made because flowering culms usually are not present and only vegetative portions of the plant can be collected. Fire and other disturbances enhance culm formation. The report from North Carolina (M. L. Fernald 1943d) was based on a misidentified specimen. Historic populations known from Connecticut (South Windsor, Hartford County) and New York (The Aqueduct, Long Island) are believed to have been extirpated.

Scirpus longii rarely hybridizes with S. cyperinus.

Plants spreading ± evenly over substrate; rhizomes thick, elongate rhizomes. Culms: fertile ones upright or nearly so; nodes without axillary bulblets. Leaves 4–7 per culm; sheaths of proximal leaves green or brownish; proximal blades and sheaths with septa few to many, conspicuous or inconspicuous; blades 30–54 cm × 5–9 mm. Inflorescences terminal; rays ascending or sometimes spreading, scabrous throughout or main branches smooth proximally, rays rarely with axillary bulblets; bases of involucral bracts black, glutinous. Spikelets in open cymes, central spikelet of each cyme sessile, others usually pedicellate, spikelets ovoid or ellipsoid to cylindric, 3.5–10.5 × 2–3(–5) mm; scales blackish, at least distally, with pale midribs, elliptic or narrowly elliptic to obovate or narrowly obovate, 2–3.1 mm, apex rounded to obtuse or minutely apiculate, apiculus (if present) less than 0.05 mm. Flowers: perianth bristles persistent, 6, slender, contorted, much longer than achene, smooth, projecting beyond scales, mature inflorescence appearing woolly; styles 3-fid. Achenes reddish brown, elliptic or obovate in outline, plano-convex or plumply trigonous, 0.7–1 × 0.4–0.5 mm. 2n = 66, 68.

N.S.; Conn., Maine, Mass., N.H., N.J., N.Y., R.I.

Fruiting early summer (Jun).

Marshes; 0–200m.

Scirpus longii Fernald, Rhodora 13: 6. 1911
Plants robust; culms 9-14 dm. high, lustrous at the nodes; leaves green or slightly glaucous, 3-8 mm. wide, serrulate along the margins and the narrow keel, the basal numerous and crowded, more or less nodulose toward the base, the cauline remote; cyme umbelliform, irregularly decompound, usually very full, 1-1.8 (rarely 3) dm. high; rays scabridulous, the longer 2-6 erect, the shorter numerous, spreading or curved; involucre of 2 or 3 leaves, these shorter than or about equaling the umbel, blackish and glutinous at the base; involucels blackish; spikelets ellipsoid, obtuse, 4-8, becoming 6-10 mm. long, the lateral long-pediceled; scales blackish, carinate-convex, oblong, obtuse, 2-3 mm. long; bristles whitish, extremely slender, finally long-exserted, crisp-flexuous, glabrous; style exserted, deeply trifid, the branches 1-1.5 mm. long; anthers linear, 1-2 (rarely 2.5) mm. long; achene about 0.5 mm. long, chestnut-brown or reddish-brown, ellipsoid-obovoid, trigonous.
Type locality: Northeast of Andrews, Camden County, New Jersey.
Distribution: Meadows, swamps, and fresh marshes, often in shallow water; Norfolk and Middlesex Counties, Massachusetts; Burlington and Camden Counties, New Jersey.

Scirpus longii is a species of flowering plant in the sedge family known by the common name Long's bulrush. It is native to eastern North America, where it is limited to the Atlantic coastal plain.

This perennial plant grows from a large rhizome and forms clumps of stems up to 1.5 meters tall. It flowers rarely, any time between May and August. The inflorescence is an open cyme of spikelets up to about a centimeter long.

This species grows in wetlands such as river banks and bogs.