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Cutting Sedge photos | Family: Sedge (Cyperaceae) |
Scientific Name: | Gahnia trifida | Cutting Sedge plant Photo: A J Brown | |||||
Other Common Name: | Coast Saw-sedge | ||||||
Status: | Native to the southern coasts of Australia. | ||||||
Plant Description: | Tussock forming perennial with stems 55-100 cm long and 4 mm wide. Leaf-blades are flat to inrolled and spreading, coarsely rough to the touch. Leaf-sheaths are dark brown to black, but dull. Flower-heads are narrow, erect, 30-70 cm long, with 1 flowered spikelets. Spikelets have 4-7 glumes with the lowest 2 or 3 shorter than the rest. Anthers are 1.3-2 mm long. Fruit is an oblong to narrowly obovoid, grey to black nut, three-sided and more or less smooth and shining, 2-2.6 mm long and 0.8-1 mm wide. | ||||||
Habitat: | Fringing coastal saltmarsh. Sometimes near inland saline lakes and watercourses.
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Comments: | Cutting Sedge differs from Chaffy Saw-sedge (Gahnia filum) by its smaller nuts, more spikelet glumes and coarser leaves. Used for straw brooms in South Australia. |
Anthers exserted from spikelets of Cutting Sedge Photo: A J Brown | Cutting Sedge flowerhead Photo: A J Brown |
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