Fuirena hispida Elliott:
United States (North America)

Fuirena squarrosa Michx.:
United States (North America)

United States

Origin: Unknown/Undetermined

Regularity: Regularly occurring

Currently: Unknown/Undetermined

Confidence: Confident

Global Range: Fuirena squarrosa ranges from New York and New Jersey throughout the southeastern United States to Texas and Oklahoma (Karesz 1999). This species also occurs in Cuba (Godfrey and Wooten 1979).

Fuirena squarrosa is most similar to F. pumila in perianth except it is perennial; to F. breviseta except its distal sheaths are hirsute, not glabrous; and to F. bushii except its perianth blade is flatter and the anthers shorter. 

 Plants of the Gulf and Atlantic coastal plains and inland to adjacent provinces east of the Mississippi River usually have closely set cormose rhizome buds.

Herbs perennial, cespitose, to 1 m; rhizomes scaly; offshoots cormose. Culms erect to leaning, smooth except in inflorescence. Leaves: all sheaths hispid-hirsute, sometimes also hirtellous; principal blades linear, 8–20 cm, abaxially puberulent, hispid-hirsute, adaxially hispid-hirsute-ciliate, scabridulous. Inflorescences in clusters of terminal spikelets or from 1–3 penultimate nodes, proximalmost involucral bract longest, exceeding inflorescence, distal 1–2 bracts shorter. Spikelets ovoid to cylindric-lanceoloid, 1–2 cm, apex acute; fertile scales 2.5–3.5 mm; cusp excurved, more than 1/2 length of scale, scabrid; ribs 3–5(–7). Flowers: perianth bristles reaching base of perianth blades or beyond, retrorsely barbellate; perianth blades narrowly to broadly ovate, uniformly compressed or distally tumid, 1 mm, base 3-ribbed, apex incurved, acuminate; anthers 3, 1 mm. Achenes: stipe shorter than perianth stipe; body angles wirelike, pale, faces deep brown to chestnut brown, faintly cross-lined, 1 mm. 2n = 46.

Fuirena squarrosa var. hispida (Elliott) Chapman

Fruiting summer–fall. Wet acid substrates, bogs, seeps, ditches, pond and lakeshores, savanna, and flatwoods; 0–500 m; Ala., Ark., Conn., Del., D.C., Fla., Ga., Ky., La., Md., Miss., N.J., N.Y., N.C., Okla., R.I., S.C., Tenn., Tex., Va.

United States

Rounded National Status Rank: NNR - Unranked

Rounded Global Status Rank: G4 - Apparently Secure

Reasons: Fuirena squarrosa occurs in marshes, bogs, and shores and is widespread from New York and New Jersey throughout the southeast to Texas and Oklahoma. It seems to be common in the central portion of its range including Virginia and the Carolinas (Weakley 2000), is occasional in the Florida panhandle (Wunderlin 1998), and only becomes rare at the edge of its range in Tennessee, Delaware, and New Jersey.

Comments: Drainage and conversion of wetlands and natural succession of boggy habitats are threats to this species (Southern Appalachian Species Viability Project 2002).

Comments: Excludes plants sometimes called Fuirena squarrosa var. pumila, which Kartesz (1999) treats as a distinct species, F. pumila.