e-Key <span id="jodit_selection_marker_1709289736844_6944099157854271" data-jodit_selection_marker="start" style="line-height: 0; display: none;"></span>v3 - Episch<span id="jodit_selection_marker_1709289736844_4709691825531164" data-jodit_selection_marker="end" style="line-height: 0; display: none;"></span>oenus
SANBI Flora Keys Logo
Interactive keys to the identification of seed plants of southern Africa using keys based on plant morphology.

Cyperaceae - Caricoideae - Schoeneae - Epischoenus C.B.Clarke

Description:

  • Perennials up to ± 1.3 m tall
  • Culms with basal nodes, terete, occasionally quadrangular in section
  • Leaves basal, eligulate; sheath split or tubular, firm, deep red towards base, adaxial apex V-shaped; blade well developed or minute or 0, profile circular to elliptical
  • Inflorescence of few to several spikelets in a short raceme
  • Spikelets of 4-8, 2-ranked glumes; basal 4-8 glumes empty, then 1-3 male florets with or without an aborted gynoecium, usually penultimate glume fertile, bisexual, uppermost 1 or 2 empty; axis of spikelet above ovary elongated, thickened, and curved round nut
  • Perianth 0
  • Stamens 3
  • Style 3-branched
  • Nutlet marble-white, subglobose, obscurely 3-angled, smooth

Nomenclature:

  • Epischoenus C.B.Clarke
    • Clarke: 273 (1898)
    • Schonland: 57 (1922)
    • Levyns: 120 (1950)
    • Levyns: 69 (1959)
    • Bond & Goldblatt: 39 (1984)
  • Tetraria P.Beauv. in part
    • Clarke: 275 (1898)
    • Clarke: 759 (1900)
  • Tetraria P.Beauv. subgen. Epischoenus (C.B.Clarke) Kük.
    • Kükenthal: 204 (1940)
  • Schoenus L. in part
    • Boeckeler: 273 (1874)

Distribution & Notes:

  • Southern Africa: Species 8, Western and Eastern Cape, possibly also KwaZulu-Natal

References:

  • BOECKELER, J.O. 1874. Die Cyperaceen des Königlichen Herbariums zu Berlin. Linnaea 38
  • BOND, P. & GOLDBLATT, P. 1984. Plants of the Cape Flora: A descriptive catalogue. Journal of South African Botany Suppl. Vol. 13
  • CLARKE, C.B. 1898. Cyperaceae. Flora capensis 7
  • CLARKE, C.B. 1900. Cyperaceae. Flora capensis 7. Addenda and corrigenda
  • KÜKENTHAL, G. 1940. Vorarbeiten zu einer Monographie der Rhynchosporoideae 9. Feddes Repertorium 48
  • LEVYNS, M.R. 1950. Cyperaceae. In R.S. Adamson & T.M. Salter, Flora of the Cape Peninsula. Juta, Cape Town
  • LEVYNS, M.R. 1959. A revision of Epischoenus C.B.Cl. Journal of South African Botany 25
  • SCHONLAND, S. 1922. Introduction to South African Cyperaceae. Memoirs of the Botanical Survey of South Africa No. 3