Gymnoschoenus sphaerocephalus

The Button grass ( Gymnoschoenus sphaerocephalus ) belongs to the family of the Sedge family ( Cyperaceae ). It grows in dense, up to a meter high and equally wide Horsten. It mainly located in bogs, marshes and wet heaths in south-east Australia. It is eponymous for the so-called "Button Grass moorlands " Tasmania and is one of the most important Torfbildner.

Features

Button grass is a perennial plant. The Hemikryptophyt forms over a meter high and equally wide, dense clumps. The three edged slightly compressed stems grow upright. They are striped but smooth. The gray to yellow- brown leaves reach 50 inches in length. They are also striped but shiny. The leaf sheaths are ciliated on the upper edges long.

The flowers are in spikelets which are in turn arranged in globular heads with diameters between 1.5 and two centimeters. At the base of the head usually are three bracts. These are broad and overlap each other on the base. The spikelets are pressed together and wear at the top of a hermaphrodite flower and a male below. The remaining four to six flowers are sterile and remain after the maturity and fruit drop and the upper glumes on the inflorescence. The shiny yellow- brown husks are like parchment lined and thin wavy edge. The bottom three or four are wide elliptically shaped and is shorter than the narrower top three or four, which are between five and 5.5 millimeters long. The male flowers bear three dust bag. The female flowers are equipped with a three-piece scar. The gray- brown fruits are between 3.0 to 3.5 mm long and 1.6 to 1.8 millimeters wide. The glossy, pale red-brown and slightly reticulate wrinkled seeds are not adherent to the pericarp.

Distribution and location

The Button grass is distributed solely to the southeast of Australia. Here it occurs in the states of New South Wales, South Australia, Victoria and Tasmania. His greatest distribution has the sour grass in Tasmania. There is eponymous for the so-called "Button Grass moorland ". This sedge occur mainly on very acidic, nutrient-poor, waterlogged and emerged from Precambrian sediments soils in shallow valleys and slopes up in montane peat layers with up to ten centimeters in thickness rainfall over 2,000 mm. Such sedge constructed from the button grass in Tasmania include a total of over 5,000 square kilometers.

Sources and further information

The general information of this article are taken from the sources listed in a bibliography, and Web links.