Schoenus nitens
(R.Br.) Roem. & Schult. Shiny Bog-rushPerennial, with slender creeping rhizome. Culms erect, rigid, grooved, nodeless, 3–37 cm high, 0.5–1 mm diam. Leaves with blade to 16 cm long; sheath red-brown, smooth or striate, shining; mouth glabrous; ligule present. Inflorescence head-like, loosely hemispherical, or reduced to 1 spikelet, erect, 0.2–1 cm diam.; lowest involucral bract to 6 cm long. Spikelets ovate, acute, 2–3-flowered, 3–5 mm long; glumes 4–7, lowest 1–3 empty, obtuse to broad-acute, red-brown to dark yellow-brown, ± shining, with glabrous, hyaline, red-dotted margins; fertile glumes 2.7–4 mm long; hypogynous bristles 6, plumose, as long as or longer than nut. Nut trigonous, ellipsoid to obovoid, angles not ribbed, smooth or minutely and faintly pitted, glabrous, shining, straw-coloured to golden-brown, 1.1–1.6 mm long, 0.7–1.1 mm diam. Flowers spring–summer.
LoM, Wim, GleP, Brid, VVP, GipP, OtP, WaP, CVU, GGr, DunT, EGL, WPro, HSF, HNF, OtR. Also WA, SA, Qld, NSW, Tas. New Guinea, South America. Usually in damp areas behind beaches or beside brackish soaks and salt lakes further inland.
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
