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Eriocaulon koernickianum

(Gulf Pipewort)

Overview

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Threatened

Threat status

Interesting Facts

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Common Names

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Common Names in English:

Gulf Pipewort, Small-Headed Pipewort, Smallhead Pipiwort

Description

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Family Eriocaulaceae

Herbs perennial or annual . Leaves in a rosette, grasslike, linear , occasionally thinly filiform , often thin and transparent, fenestrate, base sheathing . Inflorescences capitate, globose to ovoid ; scapes thin, twisted, angled , base surrounded by a bladeless, tubular sheath . Flowers 2- or 3-merous, bracteate , with both sexes usually in same head . Male flowers: sepals 2 or 3, connate or free ; petals 2 or 3, often inconspicuous; stamens 6. Female flowers: sepals 2 or 3, free or connate; petals absent to 4, free; ovary (1--) 3-loculed; ovules 1 per locule, basal; style 1, 1--3-branched. Fruit a capsule, thin, loculicidal. Seeds small; testa usually reticulate and prickly; endosperm with abundant starch grains.

Ten genera and ca. 1150 species: mainly in tropical and subtropical regions; one genus and 35 species (13 endemic) in China.[1]

Genus Eriocaulon

Herbs, annual or perennial , often cespitose, rosulate. Roots : larger roots unbranched, pale , septate , thickened, spongy . Stems rarely sparingly branched, short or elongate . Leaves many ranked in flat or high spiral ; blade basally pale, distally greener, linear-attenuate or triangular-acuminate, lingulate , narrowing gradually or abruptly from base , base noticeably lacunate , less distinctly so distally. Inflorescences: scape sheaths tubular , orifice oblique (often 2--3-cleft) ; scapes 1--several per rosette, glabrous ; heads pale to dark, white, gray, or gray-brown, hemispheric to globose or short-cylindric; receptacle hairy or glabrous; involucral bracts obscured or not obscured by inflorescence, pale to dark, chaffy or scarious ; receptacular bracts narrower, thinner than involucral bracts, often scarious. Flowers mostly with staminate and pistillate on same plants , 2--3-merous; sepals 2(--3), adnate to stipelike base, boat-shaped , scarious, apex often covered with multicellular hairs , hairs mealy white or translucent , frequently club-shaped; petals 2(--3), narrower, shorter than sepals, apex hairy, hairs club-shaped, glands adaxial , subapical , dark, rarely pale. Staminate flowers : androphore apically dilated stalk ; petals separated from sepals by androphore, diverging as lobes from apex; stamens 3--4 or 6, 2--3 alternating with petals; apex of staminal column with 2--3 glands, glands unappendaged; filaments arising from androphore rim; anthers 2-locular, 4-sporangiate, dorsifixed , usually versatile, well exserted at anthesis , jet black (except in E. cinereum) . Pistillate flowers: gynophore separating petals from sepals, stipelike; pistil 2(--3) -carpellate; style 1, unappendaged, style branches 2(--3) .

Species ca. 400: mostly pantropic, mostly aquatic or on wet, mainly acidic substrates.[2]

Physical Description

Species Eriocaulon koernickianum

Herbs, perennial , 5--8 cm. Leaves linear-attenuate, 2--5 cm, apex subulate to blunt . Inflorescences: scape sheaths as long as leaves, inflated ; scapes filiform , 0.5 mm wide, 3--4-ribbed; heads dark gray or gray-green with rims of bracts and perianth pale , nearly globose or short-oblong, 3--4 mm wide, soft; receptacle glabrous ; outer involucral bracts usually not reflexed , not obscured by bracteoles and perianth, straw-colored, very lustrous , broadly oblong to suborbiculate, 1--1.25 mm, margins nearly entire, apex rounded , glabrous; inner bracts, receptacular bracteoles dark gray, gray-green, or gray-brown, very lustrous, oblong to cuneate, obliquely keeled , 1.5 mm, margins slightly erose, apex acute to obtuse , apiculate , with a few white, club-shaped hairs . Staminate flowers : sepals 2, grayish, linear-curvate, 1--1.5 mm, apex with a few white, club-shaped hairs abaxially, marginally; androphore broadly club-shaped; petals 2, low, toothlike, nearly equal, apex with club-shaped hairs; stamens 4; anthers black. Pistillate flowers: sepals 2, gray, linear-curvate, 1 mm, apex with scattered hairs abaxially, hairs pale, club-shaped, otherwise glabrous; petals 2, yellow-white, stipitate , broadly suborbiculate-rhombic, 1 mm, apex with white, club-shaped hairs abaxially; pistil 2-carpellate. Seeds deep reddish brown, broadly ovoid or ellipsoid , 0.5 mm, often indistinctly reticulate or rugulose , papillate . [source]

Eriocaulon koernickianum is the most diminutive of our eriocaulons, widely disjunct in Georgia but seemingly most abundant on Piedmont granites. [source]

Habit: Forb/herb

Flowers: Bloom Period: February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October.

Habitat

Moist to wet sands and sandy silts of seeps , particularly over and around arenaceous outcrops; of conservation concern; 0--1000 m (Ref. 100214).

Biology

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Reproduction

Duration: Perennial

Taxonomy

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Notes

Name Status: Accepted Name .

Last scrutiny: 21-Jun-2005

Similar Species

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Members of the genus Eriocaulon

ZipcodeZoo has pages for 21 species, subspecies, varieties, forms, and cultivars in this genus:

E. aquaticum (Seven-Angle Pipewort) · E. benthamii (Bentham's Pipewort) · E. cinereum (Ashy Pipewort) · E. compressum (Flattened Pipewort) · E. compressum var. compressum (Flattened Pipewort) · E. decangulare (Ten-Angle Pipewort) · E. decangulare L. var. latifolium Chapm. ex Moldenke (Tenangle Pipewort) · E. decangulare var. decangulare (Tenangle Pipewort) · E. decangulare var. latifolium (Tenangle Pipewort) · E. heterolepis (Buttonhead Pipewort) · E. koernickianum (Gulf Pipewort) · E. koernickianum van (Gulf Pipewort) · E. lineare (Narrow Pipewort) · E. longifolium (Pipewort) · E. microcephalum (Small-Head Pipewort) · E. nigrobracteatum (Black-Bract Pipewort) · E. parkeri (Estuary Pipewort) · E. ravenelii (Ravenel's Pipewort) · E. stellulatum (Starry Pipewort) · E. texense (Texas Pipewort) · E. truncatum (Short Pipe-Wort)

More Info

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Further Reading

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Notes

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Contributors

Data Sources

Accessed through GBIF Data Portal February 28, 2008:

Identifiers

Footnotes

  1. Wei-liang Ma, Zhixiang Zhang & Thomas Stützel "Eriocaulaceae". in Flora of China Vol. 24 Page 7. Published by Science Press (Beijing) and Missouri Botanical Garden Press. Online at EFloras.org. [back]
  2. "Eriocaulon". in Flora of North America Vol. 22. Oxford University Press. Online at EFloras.org. [back]
Last Revised: 7/15/2012