11. Eleocharis verrucosa (Svenson) L.J. Harms

Pl. 74 d–f; Map 284

E. tenuis (Willd.) Schult. var. verrucosa (Svenson) Svenson

Plants perennial, often appearing sparsely tufted, the tufts connected by rhizomes 1–3 mm in diameter. Aerial stems 5–40 cm long, 0.3–1.0 mm in diameter, 4–5-angled and usually finely ridged, lacking cross-lines. Basal sheaths usually tinged reddish purple, the tip firm and somewhat thickened, truncate or nearly so, 1 side of the margin usually with a short, raised tooth. Spikelets 3–10 mm long, elliptic to narrowly ovate in outline, pointed at the tip, with 1 sterile, basal scale. Scales 2–3(–3.5) mm long, ovate, rounded to pointed at the tip, purplish brown to nearly black with white-membranous margins. Perianth bristles lacking or 2–3, shorter than the fruit, and often becoming detached during fruit development, retrorsely barbed. Stigmas 3. Fruits 0.6–1.1 mm long, the main body obovate in outline, unequally 3-angled in cross-section, the surface honeycombed with a fine network of ridges and pits, yellow, turning olive green at maturity, shiny, iridescent. Tubercles depressed-conical. 2n=20. May–September.

Common throughout Missouri (eastern U.S. west to Oklahoma). Wet depressions of bottomland and mesic upland prairies and glades, moist openings of mesic to dry upland forests, margins of ponds, lakes, sinkhole ponds, sloughs, and ditches; also along railroads.

For a discussion of potential difficulties in distinguishing some populations of this species from E. compressa, see the treatment of that species.