Cyperus difformis
L. Variable Flat-sedgeTufted annual with reddish roots. Culms triquetrous, smooth, 10–50 cm high, 2–3 mm diam. Leaves not septate-nodulose, shorter than or not much exceeding culms, 2–5 mm wide, sometimes reduced to sheaths. Inflorescence simple or rarely compound with 5–11 primary branches to 5 cm long, sometimes head-like; digitate clusters dense, 0.8–1.5 cm diam.; involucral bracts leaf-like, 1 or 2 longer than the inflorescence and usually one erect. Spikelets flattened, numerous per cluster, 2.5–5 mm long, c. 1 mm wide in side view, 10–30-flowered; rachilla not winged, persistent; glumes very obtuse, with 3-nerved keel, very dark red-brown or sometimes paler, with white margins, 0.6–0.9 mm long, c. 1 mm wide; stamens 1, rarely 2. Nut triquetrous, ellipsoid to obovoid, straw-coloured, almost as long as glume, 0.5–0.7 mm long, c. 0.3 mm diam. Flowers spring–summer.
MuM, VVP, VRiv, MSB, RobP, MuF, GipP, OtP, Gold, CVU, NIS, OtR. All mainland States. Pantropical. Locally common in seasonally wet, often disturbed open situations along the Murray River and its tributaries, recorded once as a nursery weed in Parkville, an inner Melbourne suburb. .
Wilson, K.L. (1994). Cyperaceae. In: Walsh, N.G.; Entwisle, T.J., Flora of Victoria Vol. 2, Ferns and Allied Plants, Conifers and Monocotyledons, pp. 238–356. Inkata Press, Melbourne.
Spinning
