White Spike Rush

In most spikelets, the bright brown stigmas contrast strikingly with the stramineous floral scales. We have not seen vouchers for H. K. Svenson’s (1937) reports of Eleocharis albida from Virginia. The collections we have seen from Maryland are from the 1800s.

Plants perennial; rhizomes soft, longer internodes 2–4 cm, cortex loose, scales fugaceous, 6 mm, thinly membranous and translucent. Culms not rooting at tips, terete, 10–40 cm, soft to firm, smooth. Leaves: distal leaf sheaths proximally brownish or sometimes reddish, distally stramineous to green. Spikelets ovoid to oblong-subcylindric, 4–12 × 2–3.5 mm, apex acute to rounded; proximal scale empty, clasping 1/2 of culm, like floral scales; subproximal 1 or 2 scales often empty; floral scales 20–100, 10 per mm of rachilla, entirely stramineous or sometimes red-brown, ovate, (1.5–)2–2.5 × 1.5 mm, apex broadly rounded, entire. Flowers: perianth bristles (5–)6(–8), brown, stout, the longer equaling achene or tubercle, retrorsely spinulose; stamens 3; anthers brown, 1 mm. Achenes falling with scales, obovoid, angles keeled, 0.8–1 × 0.7–0.8 mm, apex with short neck. Tubercles whitish to brown, mammillate to pyramidal, 0.2–0.3 × 0.3–0.35 mm, 1/3 or less as wide as achene.

Ala., Fla., Ga., La., Md., Miss., N.Mex., N.C., S.C., Tex.; Mexico; Bermuda.

Fruiting summer.

Coastal saltmarsh edges, sloughs, beaches, dune depressions, ditches; 0m.

Eleocharis albida Torr. Ann. Lye. N. Y. 3 : 304. 1836
Eleocharis simplex Kunth, Enum. PI. 2: 143. 1837. (South Carolina.)
Eleocharis albida var. Berlandieri Britton, Jour. N. Y. Micr. Soc. 5: 108. 1889. (Texas.)
Eleocharis Berlandieri Clarke, Symb. Ant. 2 : 162. 1900.
Eleocharis bermudiana Britton, Jour. N. Y. Bot. Gard. 13: 191. 1913. (Bermuda.)
Tufted, from a slender, creeping rootstock; culms 0.5-3 dm. long, usually wiry, slender, 1 mm. wide in large specimens, lightly striate ; sheaths stramineous, often with a brownish base, the apex strongly oblique, acute, somewhat cartilaginous ; spikelets cylindric-ovoid, 2-10 mm. long, obtuse; scales white to light brown, appressed, obtuse, cartilaginous, scarcely keeled, the scarious margin almost lacking ; stamens 3, the anthers 0.8 mm. long ; style trifid ; achenes 1 mm. long, broadly obovate-trigonous, often contracted at the apex, smooth, dull to shining brown when mature ; style-base conic-deltoid, pale brown, one-fourth as wide as the achene; bristles dark reddish-brown, exceeding the achene, with close-set retrorse teeth.
Type locality : Talbot Island, South Carolina (Baldwin.) Distribution: Saline shores: Maryland to Mexico; Bermuda.