Northeast Wetland Flora
Field Office Guide to Plant Species
Fuirena pumila Torr.
- Family: Sedge (Cyperaceae)
- Flowering: July-October
- Field Marks: This species of Fuirena differs from all others by its annual growth form, its hispid leaf sheaths, and its yellow-brown achenes.
- Habitat: Bogs, wet shores.
- Habit: Tufted annual with fibrous roots.
- Stems: Upright, smooth, slender, up to 1 1/2 feet tall.
- Leaves: Elongated, flat, up to 1/12 inch wide, smooth; sheaths hispid.
- Flowers: Borne in spikelets arranged in 2-8 crowded heads, each head subtended by leaf-like bracts; spikelets several-flowered, the scales with spreading or recurved awns at the tip, olive-green, oblong to ovate, finely nerved.
- Sepals: Reduced to 3 long-stalked scales, oblong to ovate, with a retrorse bristly awn.
- Petals: Reduced to retrorsely barbed bristles.
- Stamens: 3.
- Pistils: Ovary superior, smooth.
- Fruits: Achenes yellow-brown, shiny, short-pointed at the tip, smooth, shorter than the subtending bristles.
- Notes: The achenes are eaten by waterfowl.
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