Xyris subuniflora

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Xyris subuniflora

Description

Low, delicate, densely cespitose, smooth, to 10 cm high, annual or short-lived perennial, stems short. Leaves erect or in fans, 1-7 cm; sheath eciliate, soft, base keeled, tan or pink, eligulate or with ligule to 1 mm, blade filiform, flattened, 0.3-0.5 mm wide, margins entire, surface maroon or olive. Scapes filiform, distally terete, ca. 0.3 mm thick, ribless, finely striate; spikes narrowly ellipsoid, becoming lance-ovoid, 4-5 mm, bracts few, all but one empty, all with distinct dorsal area, the empty ones usually 4, triangular-oblong, slightly shorter than the fertile one, this oblong to ovate, conduplicate, ca. 4 mm. Lateral sepals 1/2 connate, 3-3.5 mm, lobes narrowly triangular, keel smooth; petals obovate, ca. 3 mm; staminodes bearded; anthers ca. 0.8 mm. Capsule ca. 1.5 mm, placentation basal, valves eseptate; seeds few, broadly ellipsoid, 0.5-0.6 mm, brown, opaque.

Distribution

Amazonian Brazil present, S Venezuela present, SE Colombia present, Southern America: Brazil North (Amazonas present, Roraima present), Suriname present
SE Colombia E across S Venezuela to Suriname; Amazonian Brazil (Amazonas, Thrr. Roraima).

Notes

Perhaps the smallest, certainly the most slender species of Xyris, very easily overlooked among the masses of other small xyrids of open savanna.