Common name: Dwarf Flat-sedge
Cyperus pygmaeus Rottb. APNI* 
Description: Small, tufted, leafy annual with reddish roots.
Culms triquetrous, smooth, 1–20 cm high, to 1.5 mm diam.
Leaves not septate-nodulose, usually longer than culms, 1–2 mm wide. Inflorescence densely head-like, 6–18 mm diam.; involucral bracts leaf-like, 5–7 or more spreading, very much longer than inflorescence, often a few smaller bracts protruding from the head. Spikelets flattened, very numerous per cluster, 3–5 mm long, 1.5–2 mm wide in side view, 8–20-flowered; rachilla not winged, persistent. Glumes acute, short-mucronate, with sides 1- or 2-nerved, c. 2 mm long, c. 0.5 mm wide, white to pale brown with conspicuous green midrib. Stamens 1 or 2. Style 2- or occasionally 3-fid.
Nut dorsally flattened with a flat or concave face against the rachilla, or sometimes trigonous, obovoid to ellipsoid, half to a third as long as glume, 0.8–1 mm long, 0.2–0.5 mm diam., pale brown.
Flowering: spring–summer.
Distribution and occurrence: Grows on open stream banks and seasonally wet open floodways, on clayey soils; very scattered.
NSW subdivisions: NWS, NWP, SWP, NFWP, SFWP
Other Australian states: Qld Vic. W.A. S.A. N.T.
Text by K. L. Wilson
Taxon concept: Flora of NSW 4 (1993)
APNI* Provides a link to the Australian Plant Name Index (hosted by the Australian National Botanic Gardens) for comprehensive bibliographic data
***The AVH map option provides a detailed interactive Australia wide distribution map drawn from collections held by all major Australian herbaria participating in the Australian Virtual Herbarium project.
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