Abildgaardia Vahl

• Authority

  Acevedo-Rodríguez, Pedro & collaborators. 1996. Flora of St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands. Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 78: 1-581.

• Family

  Cyperaceae

• Scientific Name

  Abildgaardia Vahl

• Description

  Genus Description - Plants perennial, tufted; culms obscurely angled, ribbed, ascending to deflexed, leafy toward base or leaves reduced to bladeless sheaths. Leaves basal; blades narrowly linear to filiform, scabrous on margins; blade-bearing sheaths closed, eligulate, the inner band membranous, splitting with age. Inflorescence a single spikelet or a cluster of several spikelets at the summit of the culm, or a simple, umbellate cyme, subtended by a single involucral bract; spikelets ovate, somewhat flattened, many-flowered; scales 2-ranked, at least toward the base, keeled, smooth. Flowers bisexual; bristles absent; stamens 2 or 3, the anthers narrowly oblong; style 3-branched, the branches angled, the unbranched portion narrowly wing-angled, smooth or remotely fimbriate on margins below, fimbriate toward apex, disarticulating below the expanded base. Achenes subglobose to obovoid, obscurely 3-angled, stipitate at base, verrucose; bristles absent.

• Distribution

  Approximately 15 species in the New and Old World tropics.