Lepidosperma carphoides
F.Muell. ex Benth. Black Rapier-sedgeTufted perennial with short rhizome. Culms rigid, erect, terete but 1-grooved, glabrous, smooth, 20–60 cm high, 0.5–1.0 mm diam. Leaf-blades similar in form to culms or somewhat compressed, shorter than to equalling culms, 0.5–0.9 mm diam., or reduced; sheaths dark yellow-brown to grey-brown, not viscid, ± dull. Inflorescence fan-shaped to oblong in outline, erect, rachis often flexuose between the distant clusters of spikelets, 1.5–4 cm long, 1–1.5 cm diam.; involucral bract shorter than inflorescence, obvious, enclosing lowest spikelets, blackish (bract at the base of each cluster of spikelets similar). Spikelets few, 8–12 mm long; glumes 4, long-acute, mucronate, glabrous, dark red-brown to blackish, the 1 or 2 lowest empty, about same length as fertile glumes, which are 5–7 mm long; hypogynous scales 6, yellowish to red-brown, c. one-third length of nut. Nut narrow-obovoid to narrow-ellipsoid, whitish to red-brown, smooth, shining, 3.3–4.7 mm long, 1.5–2.0 mm diam Flowers spring.
LoM, MuM, Wim, GleP, Brid, VVP, GipP, Gold, CVU, GGr, DunT. Also WA, SA. Locally common in heath, mallee and woodland vegetation on sandy soils in drier areas of western Victoria.
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.