Eleocharis suksdorfiana

Suksdorf's spikerush

Family: Cyperaceae · Type: perennial · Native

Suksdorf's spikerush is a California native perennial found in northwestern California, high Cascade Range, Sierra Nevada, San Francisco Bay Area, Transverse Ranges, and Desert Mountains in wet meadows, fens, and springs at elevations below 3,400 meters. Flowering during summer, this plant produces small greenish-brown spikelets 5 to 10 millimeters long with delicate flower bracts. Growing 4 to 40 centimeters tall with erect, slender stems that are cylindric to slightly flat, it emerges from a weak rhizome with a hard caudex. Its distal leaf sheaths are firm and persistent, with tips that are subtly truncate to obtuse. The fruit is 2 to 2.7 millimeters long, three-sided, with a narrow, beak-like tip and often accompanied by six perianth bristles.

Habitat: Often subdominant but local. Wet meadows, fens, springs

Bloom period: Summer

Elevation: < 3400 m

Bioregions: NW, CaRH, SN, SnFrB, TR, DMtns

Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.