Seed heads. Photo: DM Taylor, California, USA

Seed heads. Australian Plant Image Index, photo: Murray Fagg, west of Hay, NSW

Plant. Australian Plant Image Index, photo: Murray Fagg, west of Hay, NSW

Seed heads and stems. Photo: DM Taylor, California, USA

Plant base. Photo: John Poulakis, Windsor, NSW

Common Name

Dirty Dora, Variable Flat -sedge

Family

Cyperaceae

Notes

Annual sedge to 50cm tall, growing in wet places.  Leaves basal, with a sheath at the base, sometimes reduced to loose basal sheaths.  Leaves shorter or slightly longer than the stems, 2-5mm wide, grass-like.  Spikelets 2.5-8mm long, about 1mm wide, dark red to brown or blackish, sometimes pale, with 0 petals, in digitate groups or spherical heads at the tops of the flowering stems, subtended by 1-3 leafllike bracts, the lowest usually erect and pushing the inflorescence to one side. Grows in water or mud.

Description and photo in G.M. Cunningham, WE Mulham, PL Milthorpe and J H Leigh (1981 and later printings) Plants of Western New South Wales page 159

PlantNET description:  http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?Macquarie transact page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Cyperus~difformis