Scleria gaertneri

Common Name: cortadera blanca

Family: Cyperaceae

Common Synonyms: Scleria melaleuca, Scleria pterota var. melaleuca

USDA Hardiness Zone: NA

Growth Habit: Graminoid

Origin: Central and South America, the Caribbean, and sub-Saharan Africa

FISC Category: -

FDACS Listed Noxious Weed: No

Introduction Date: Earliest Florida specimen vouchered in 2010

IFAS Assessment:

• North: Not Assessed
• Central: Not Assessed
• South: Not Assessed

Description

Robust perennial 0.3–1.2 cm tall, with a shortly creeping rhizome 3–4 mm wide with very short internodes obscured by the swollen stem bases. Stems 2.5–3 mm wide, sometimes slightly scabrid above on the angles. Leaves shorter or longer than the stems, 5–11 mm wide, scabrid on the margins and veins. Sheaths glabrous to sparsely hairy, the basal ones ± without blades; ligule reddish hairy up to 6 mm long. Inflorescence of terminal and lateral panicles, the latter 2–3 single at the nodes, 2–7 cm long, 1–2 cm wide on peduncles scarcely or very shortly exserted from the leaf sheaths; male spikelets 4–4.8 mm long; female glumes pale, usually with reddish streaks or completely reddish or blackish red above, ovate, 3.5–5 mm long with greenish sometimes produced midrib, acuminate. Nutlets white with reddish or bluish black apex, globose or ovoid-globose, sometimes obscurely trigonous, 2.2–2.5 mm long, 2–2.2 mm wide, smooth and shining, glabrous above, with small or very small tufts of fine whitish hairs below; hypogynium 3-lobed, the lobes ovate or rounded, 1 mm long.

Habitat

Wet, muddy, open and semi open areas, streambeds

Comments

NA

Control Methods

• Manual: NA
• Chemical: NA
• Biological: NA

Control Notes

NA

References

Cyperaceae, K Hoenselaar, B. Verdcourt & H. Beentje. Hypolytrum, D Simpson. Fuirena, M Muasya. Flora of Tropical East Africa. 2010

Institute for Regional Conservation. 2020. Plants of the island of Puerto Rico. https://www.regionalconservation.org/ircs/database/plants/PlantPagePR.asp?TXCODE=Sclegaer Accessed on April 14, 2022.

Wunderlin, R. P., B. F. Hansen, A. R. Franck, and F. B. Essig. 2022. Atlas of Florida Plants (http://florida.plantatlas.usf.edu/). [S. M. Landry and K. N. Campbell (application development), USF Water Institute.] Institute for Systematic Botany, University of South Florida, Tampa. A

"Franck, Alan R., et al. ""ADDITIONS TO THE FLORA OF FLORIDA, U.S.A. (2010–2015)."" Journal of the Botanical Research Institute of Texas, vol. 10, no. 1, 2016, pp. 175–90. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/44858842. Accessed 27 Jul. 2022."