Xyris uleana
Content
Description
Cespitose, soft, annual, 6-15(-22) cm high, stems short. Leaves erect or in fans, 3-10 cm, sheath keeled, eciliate, brown or tan, mostly eligulate, blade strongly flattened, 1-3.5 mm wide, margins thin or with a yellowish-incrassate vein, smooth or distally papillose, surfaces mostly smooth, often reddish. Scapes distally 2-winged or terete; spikes broadly to narrowly ovoid, 0.3-0.5(-10) cm long, bracts several, with broad, scarious, often pilose-ciliate borders and large papillose dorsal area, empty bracts 2, often with back alate-keeled and with excurrent dorsal area, with blade longer than spike, tip incurved-cucullate or erect; flowering bracts broadly obovate to suborbicular, cucullate, 2-3.5 mm, ecarinate. Lateral sepals free to connate at base, strongly inequilateral, strongly curved, 2.5-3 mm, keel cilialate and/or papillose; petals obovate, ca. 2 mm; staminodes bearded; anthers ca. 0.5 mm. Capsule ca. 1.5 mm, placentation basal, valves eseptate; seeds narrowly ovoid to ellipsoid, 0.5-0.7 mm, pale amber.