Grasses List
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Grasses List
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Sedge Club- & Spike-Rush Family [Cyperaceae] 
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category
status
flower
inner
petals
type
stem
| 26th Aug 2016, ponds, Seaforth, Sefton Coast. | Photo: © RWD |
| It usually stands erect up to 1.5m tall, but wind and rain have made it bend over backwards for you. |
| 26th Aug 2016, ponds, Seaforth, Sefton Coast. | Photo: © RWD |
| But here are one or two still more or less upright. |
| 26th Aug 2016, ponds, Seaforth, Sefton Coast. | Photo: © RWD |
| Has long grass-like leaves and many spikelets of petal-less inflorescences. |
| 26th Aug 2016, ponds, Seaforth, Sefton Coast. | Photo: © RWD |
| The spikes are reddish-brown. The leaves are about as long as the stems and 4mm-7mm wide and corrugated / keeled for rigidity (sometimes flat). |
| 26th Aug 2016, ponds, Seaforth, Sefton Coast. | Photo: © RWD |
| Here's one I caught earlier, but still madly dancing in the wind. The main stem is solid, smooth and triangular in cross-section with two faces concave and one nearly flat, 4mm across flats. The inflorescences are in a loosely-branched compound umbel of long spikes. At the base of the main umbel emerge several leaf-like bracts (3 in the one shown above). |
| 26th Aug 2016, ponds, Seaforth, Sefton Coast. | Photo: © RWD |
| Each spike on a thin stalk mainly directly proportional to its length, which is sometimes quite long. |
| 26th Aug 2016, ponds, Seaforth, Sefton Coast. | Photo: © RWD |
| Showing how the leaf-like bracts peel-off the end of the main stem. |
| 26th Aug 2016, ponds, Seaforth, Sefton Coast. | Photo: © RWD |
| One or two spikelets in the 'armpit'. |
| 26th Aug 2016, ponds, Seaforth, Sefton Coast. | Photo: © RWD |
| Spikelets about a centimetre long, linear to narrow-oblong, compressed and with their lower glumes empty and only about 1mm long whilst the upper glumes are fertile and bisexual (with protruding anthers and stigmas) and 2.5mm long. |
| 26th Aug 2016, ponds, Seaforth, Sefton Coast. | Photo: © RWD |
| The florets of Galingales are not spirally-arranged (as in other Sedges). The florets are alternately at right-angles in opposite pairs. The fertile florets have three white re-curved stigmas (like grappling-hooks) and three cream-coloured anthers. The nuts (not visible here) are 1mm long, 3-angled, red-brown and retain the 3 stigmas atop. |
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Not to be semantically confused with : Gale / Sweet Gale (Myrica gale) aka Bog Myrtle [a plant with similar name of a differing family]. Nor to be semantically confused with Cyperus Sedge which is a true Sedge in a differing genus Carex but still within the Cyperaceae family.
Some similarities to : other Galingales such as Slight resemblance to : American Galingale (Cyperus eragrostis) but that is a medium height 60cm, with greenish to yellowish-brown spikelets. Uniquely identifiable characteristics Distinguishing Feature : It's triangular stem and tallness, the multiple and long spikelets which are reddish-brown and narrow. Galingale is a native (but often planted for ornament), rhizomatous perennial sedge which grows in damp places, by fresh water, ditches and in damp flushes. It grows natively mainly in South Wales, Kent and Cornwall. |
 Cyperus
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longus
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⇐ Global Aspect ⇒ |
Cyperaceae
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 Cyperus (Galingales) |
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Sedge Club- & Spike-Rush Family [Cyperaceae]
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