Plants; roots purplish, fibrous; rhizomes short (in perennial forms). Culms solitary or in tufts, erect or spreading, slender, (6-)15-50 cm, glabrous or hairy. Leaves: sheaths often purple-tinged at base, sometimes somewhat winged, ribbed, glabrous or densely pubescent; contra-ligules rotund-obtuse, short; blades linear, flat, often ribbed, obtuse, shorter than or equaling culm, 1-3.5 mm wide, glabrous or occasionally margins and veins abaxially scabrous. Inflorescences axillary and terminal, paniculate; panicles compact, 8-25 mm, lateral clusters sessile or on short erect peduncles to 20(-90) mm; bracts subtending inflorescence leaflike, distalmost lateral bract 3/4 as long as to exceeding terminal internode. Spikelets bisexual or unisexual; staminate spikelets 2-3 mm, pistillate spikelets 3-4(-5) mm; staminate scales lanceolate; pistillate scales ovate-lanceolate, apex acuminate. Achenes gray or brownish and/or with dark interangular lines and little pubescence, globose to ovoid, 1.5-2 mm, apex umbonate, surface reticulate to completely smooth, somewhat verrucose in some forms, reticulations pubescent with tufts of yellowish hairs; hypogynium distinctly 3-lobed, lobes ovate-lanceolate, apex obtuse, sometimes emarginate.

Fruiting summer-fall. Moist or wet sandy or sandy-peaty soil of pond and lake margins, wet savannas, and moist swales; 0-500 m; Ala., Conn., Del., Fla., Ga., Ind., Md., Mass., Mich., Miss., N.H., N.J., N.Y., N.C., Pa., R.I., S.C., Tex., Va., Wis.

Scleria reticularis is a smaller plant and less widely distributed than S. muehlenbergii. In addition to the difference noted in the key, S. reticularis differs from S. muehlenbergii in having the lobe of the hypogynium obtuse and emarginate at the apex rather than obtuse to acute, the terminal internode of the stem usually 3-8 cm rather than 6-30 cm, and scales of pistillate flowers mostly 3-4 mm rather than 4-5 mm.

Scleria reticularis is a relatively uniform species throughout its restricted range. It does not occur outside of the United States and is infrequent in the southern portion of its range. The key characters used to separate S. reticularis from S. muehlenbergii apply only to temperate collections.

Annual (sometimes perennial) herb with fibrous, purplish roots (or short rhizomes when perennial) 15 cm - 0.5 m tall

Leaves: three-ranked. Sheaths tinged purple basally, occasionally somewhat winged, ribbed, sometimes densely hairy. Ligules short and round. Blades stiff, 1 - 3.5 mm wide, shorter than or equal to the culm, linear with a blunt tip, flat, often ribbed, midvein prominent, occasionally rough along the margins and veins beneath.

Inflorescence: a small, branched arrangement (panicle) of spikelets, axillary and terminal, subtended by leaf-like bracts. Terminal panicles 0.5 - 3 cm long. Lateral panicles more or less remote, the uppermost bearing a bract (including sheath) three-fourths or more the length of the terminal internode, the lower upright and stalkless or growing on stiff stalks. Stalks upright and to 2 or more cm long.

Flowers: either male or female, borne on the same plant (monoecious), minute, subtended by a floral scale, lacking sepals and petals. Stamens one to three, exserted. Anthers 2 - 4 mm long. Pistil one. Style linear, two- to three-cleft.

Fruit: a one-seeded achene, white to gray or brownish, 1.5 - 2 mm wide, spherical to egg-shaped with an umbonate (bearing an umbo, or protuberance) apex, smooth or wrinkled, often with yellowish hairs on the ridges, sometimes slightly warty, subtended by a disk-like structure (hypogynium). Hypogynium three-lobed.

Culm: solitary or forming tufts, spreading or upright, slender, 15 cm - 0.5 m long, three-sided, solid, sometimes hairy.

Spikelets: bisexual or unisexual. Male spikelets 2 - 3 mm long, with lance-shaped scales. Female spikelets 3 - 4 mm long, with egg- to lance-shaped scales.

Similar species: No information at this time.

Flowering: late June to mid-September

Habitat and ecology: Rare in the Chicago Region, where it grows in the sandy soil of marshes.

Occurence in the Chicago region: native

Etymology: Scleria comes from the Greek word scleria, meaning hardness, referring to the fruit. Reticularis means "with a net-like pattern."

Author: The Morton Arboretum

In damp or wet, sandy soil in a few marshes of northwestern Indiana. Very local. This species was erroneously cited by Core (Brittonia 2: 82. 1936) as having been collected in Greene County by Nieuwland. Nieuwland's specimens of the number cited by Core in the herbarium of the University of Notre Dame are from Porter County. [Deam recognizes S. setacea as a distinct species. He provides the following about that taxon.] There is a specimen in the herbarium of the University of Wisconsin collected Umbach in 1908 near Dune Park, Porter County, which I am referring to this species. This specimen has the pubescent achenes and the long, filiform peduncles of the lateral spikelets but the lobes of the hypogynium are not acute or only scarcely so. Witmer Stone, in this "Flora of South New Jersey." on page 284 says: "The width of the leaves and pubescence of the acenes are characters which are very variable." The size of the achenes of our plants is about the same as those of S. reticularis. While the achenes of typical S. reticularis are glabrous, sometimes an achene is found which has a trace of pubescence which is a character of S. setacea. This species is somehwat frequent on the moist or dry, sandy border of the west end of the second marsh from the north side of section 2 and on the east side of this section about 2 1/2 miles southeast of Tefft, Jasper County. It is closely associated with S. triglomerata Michx. and S. pauciflora var. caroliniana (Willd.) Wood. This is an interdunal marsh between rather low sand hills which are covered with black oak. This marsh is covered with Calamagrostis canadensis. Besides the Sclerias already named, on the border of this marsh are found also Hypericum adpressum and Panicum verrucosum. This marsh and others nearby are noted for the number of Coastal Plain plants found in them.

Annual, or perennial from short, slender rhizomes, very slender, to 8 dm; main blades 2-4 mm wide, sometimes hairy; cymes (1)2-4, the lateral remote; pistillate scales lanceolate to ovate, acute or acuminate; achene subglobose, white or sordid-gray, 1.5-2 mm thick, minutely apiculate, marked with narrow ridges enclosing shallow, irregularly polygonal pits; hypogynium double, the inner 3- lobed, resembling a calyx, each lobe oblong and closely appressed to the glabrous or minutely hairy achene. Damp sandy soil and pine-barrens; tropical Amer. and s. U.S., n. mainly along the coast to Mass., and inland to sw. Mich., e. Wis., and Mo. (S. r. var. pubescens; S. muhlenbergii; S. setacea, misapplied)

Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.

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