Xyris jupicai Rich.

• Authority

  Britton, Nathaniel L. Flora Borinqueña.

• Family

  Xyridaceae

• Scientific Name

  Xyris jupicai Rich.

• Description

  Species Description - A low, herbaceous plant, attractive by small, dense clusters of bright yellow flowers at the ends of longer, slender, upright, leafless stalks (scapes), arising from the base of the plant among its long, narrow leaves. In Porto Rico it occurs locally in wet, sandly soil on the northern coastal plain, usually growing among grasses, or other low vegetation. Geographically it is distributed through the Greater Antilles, ranging north in the continental United States to Maryland, being a marsh plant which can thrive in temperate as well as tropical climates; it grows also in Trinidad, and in Central and South America. No Spanish name has been recorded. Xyris (a Greek name for some plant with 2-edged leaves) is a Linnaean genus of some 50 species, widely distributed in temperate and tropical regions, both of the New World and the Old. They are annual or perennial herbs, with narrow leaves sheathing the base of a leafless stem (scape), which bears a terminal, dense cluster of perfect flowers subtended by small, stiff, overlapping bracts, each flower solitary in the axil of a bract. There are 3 sepals, 2 small and boat-shaped, the keel sometimes winged, the other usually longer; the 3 yellow, or sometimes white petals are narrowed at the base into claws; there are 3, anther-bearing stamens, borne on the petal-claws, usually alternating with 3, plumose, or bearded, sterile ones (staminodes); the 1-celled ovary contains many ovules and there are 3, terminal styles. The fruit is a many-seeded, oblong, 3-valved capsule. Xyris Jupicai (French Guiana name) has long, flat, smooth leaves from 2.5 to 5.5 millimeters wide. The solitary, or clustered scapes are from 20 to 60 centimeters high, sometimes minutely roughened. The ellipsoid flower-clusters become from 10 to 20 millimeters long and from 6 to 8 millimeters thick; the lateral sepals are 4 or 5 millimeters long, with a fimbriate wing, the bright yellow petals about 6 millimeters long. Another species, Xyris Ellotti, with narrower leaves and larger sepals, grows in similar situations in Porto Rico, in Cuba, and in the southeastern continental United States.

• Discussion

  Southern Yellow-eyed Grass Yellow-eyed Grass Family Xyris Jupicai L.C. Richard, Actes de la Société d'Histoire Naturelle de Paris 1: 106. 1792. Xyris communis Kunth, Enumeratic Plantarum 4: 12. 1843.