Cyperus reflexus
VahlSlender perennial with short thick rhizome. Culms trigonous, smooth, 20–50 cm high, 1–2.5 mm diam. Leaves scarcely septate-nodulose, shorter than culms, 1–2 mm wide. Inflorescence simple or compound with 4–8 branches to 4 cm long or head-like; digitate clusters 1–1.5 cm diam.; involucral bracts leaf-like, 3 or 4 exceeding the inflorescence. Spikelets flattened, numerous per cluster, 4–12 mm long, 0.8–2.5 mm wide in side view, 10–24-flowered; rachilla not winged, persistent; glumes with 3-nerved keel, dark red-brown, 1.5–2 mm long; stamen 1. Nut trigonous, obovoid to ellipsoid, grey-brown, two-fifths as long as glume, 0.8–1.4 mm long, c. 0.4 mm diam. Flowers spring–summer.
VVP, VRiv, GipP. Also naturalised in NSW. Native to North and South America. Known in Victoria by a few collections on swampy or irrigated farmland between Bendigo and Shepparton, and weedy parkland at Endeavour Hills (south-eastern suburb of Melbourne).
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