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Eriocaulon ravenelii

(Ravenel's Pipewort)

Overview

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Vulnerable

Threat status

Interesting Facts

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Common Names

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Common Names in English:

Ravenel's Pipewort

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 ravenelii

Herbs, biennial or perennial , 4--20 cm. Leaves linear-attenuate, 3--7(--15) cm, apex subulate , flat. Inflorescences: scape sheaths shorter than leaves, loose ; scapes filiform , 0.5 mm wide, 4--5(--6) -ribbed; heads gray-brown to dark gray, nearly globose or ovoid , 3--4 mm wide, relatively soft; receptacle glabrous or with sparse, clear hairs ; outer involucral bracts usually not reflexed , not obscured by bracteoles and perianth, gray, ovate-oblong or broadly spatulate , 2 mm, margins nearly entire, apex narrowly rounded to acute, surfaces glabrous; inner bracts, receptacular bracts gray, very lustrous , narrowly ovate to oblong or spatulate, 2 mm, margins nearly entire, apex acute to acuminate or lacerate , glabrous. Staminate flowers : sepals 2, gray, oblong to oblanceolate , 1.5--2 mm, apex usually acute, glabrous; androphore narrowly club-shaped; petals 2, pale , scalelike, minute, glabrous, with inconspicuous glands ; stamens 4; anthers black. Pistillate flowers: sepals 2, gray, narrowly oblong to lance-linear , 1.5--2 mm, apex acute, glabrous; petals 2, yellow-white, narrowly oblanceolate or oblong, 1.5--2 mm, apex acute, glabrous or with a few hairs at apex or adaxially, with inconspicuous glands; pistil 2-carpellate. Seeds dark brown, somewhat lustrous, broadly ellipsoid , 0.5 mm, conspicuously irregularly pale-reticulate, alveolae mainly rectangular. [source]

Habit: Forb/herb

Flowers: Bloom Period: January, July, November, December.

Habitat

Mildly acid sandy pineland swamps , particularly on wet fluctuating shores of shallow ponds toward coasts; of conservation concern; 0--100 m [3].

Typically found in the intertidal zone at the water's edge at a mean distance from sea level of -7 meters (-24 feet).[4]

Biology

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Reproduction

Duration: Annual , 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]
  3. "Eriocaulon ravenelii". in Flora of North America Vol. 22. Oxford University Press. Online at EFloras.org. [back]
  4. Standard Deviation = 65.690 based on 22 observations. Terrestrial altitude and ocean depth information for each observation from British Oceanographic Data Centre. [back]
Last Revised: 7/15/2012