3. Scleria pauciflora Muhl. (Carolina nut grass)
Pl. 86 a, b; Map 328
S. pauciflora var. caroliniana
(Willd.) A.W. Wood
Plants perennial with knotty rhizomes.
Aerial stems usually appearing clustered, 20–50 cm long, erect to ascending,
glabrous or less commonly sparsely hairy, usually somewhat roughened along the
angles. Leaf sheaths usually not winged but usually roughened along the angles,
hairy, green and often somewhat tinged with purple, the convex tip opposite the
leaf blade 1–2 mm long, broadly rounded, hairy. Leaf blades 1–25 cm long, 1–2
mm wide, hairy, especially along the margins and main veins, rarely nearly
glabrous. Inflorescences few to several clusters of spikelets, these arranged
in 1–3 headlike masses. Bracts erect to ascending, 0.8–9.0 cm long. Spikelets
4.0–6.5 mm long, the scales green to purplish brown. Fruits with the main body
1.3–2.0 mm long at maturity, broadly ovate to circular in outline, the tip
usually with a minute point, the surface irregularly warty and sometimes also
with short ridges, shiny, white or rarely grayish tinged, the basal disk
irregularly 3-angled, with 6 distinct tubercles. May–September.
Scattered in the Ozark and Ozark Border
Divisions (eastern U.S. west to Texas; Mexico, Central America, Caribbean Islands). Fens, mesic upland prairies, moist areas of glades, savannas, and
openings of dry upland forests, often (but not always) on calcareous
substrates.
In Missouri, this species is less commonly
encountered than is the closely related S. ciliata. For further
discussion of the separation of these two taxa, see the treatment of that
species. As in S. ciliata, a number of poorly differentiated
morphological races occur. Plants of S. pauciflora with denser
pubescence of longer hairs have been called var. caroliniana, a variant
that is unworthy of formal taxonomic recognition.