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Rhynchospora alba
Also called White beak-sedge, White Beak Rush, White Beakrush, White Beaked Rush, White Topped Sedge
Rhynchospora alba, the white beak-sedge, is a plant in the sedge family, Cyperaceae. It is a tufted herbaceous perennial around 50 cm tall, with white inflorescences that flower in August. The fruit of the sedge is a small achene with a characteristic beak-like cap. It is dispersed by wind or falls by gravity, leading to individuals existing in tight clumps. The species favours wet, acidic and nutrient poor soils, thriving in Sphagnum-dominated bogs, but also peaty grasslands. As such, it is often used as a positive indicator for bog and mire ecosystem health.
The species was first described by Linnaeus in 1753 under a different genus and name, Schoenus albus, but was subsequently reclassified into the novel genus Rhynchospora by Vahl in 1805. It has a wide range across the Northern Hemisphere, extending from the inland wetlands of North America, across Europe to the Korean Peninsula.
Rhynchospora alba favours acidic, nutrient poor conditions and is found across a range of wetland environments. It is most commonly found in ombrotrophic bogs (where plant nutrients are only obtained through rainfall and dry deposition) and Sphagnum moss-dominated communities, where it is one of the few vascular plant species present. Studies into nutrient and mass allocation by R. alba found the plant exhibits much higher rates of nutrient accumulation and loss across the growing season than in other sedges, which rely more heavily on storage and remobilising of nutrients in rhizomes. This is likely related to the much lower levels of interspecific competition experienced by R. alba in these bogs than other sedges in more grass-dominated environments.
White beak-sedge is used very little by humans due to its favoured habitat of nutrient-poor acidic bogs, but is sometimes used as an ornamental plant in the UK, and in bog restoration.
Baldwin's beaksedge · Little beaksedge · Rhynchospora biflora · West Indian beaksedge · Anglestem beaksedge · California beaksedge · Needle beaksedge · Brownish beaksedge · Broadfruit horned beaksedge · Bunched beaksedge · Rhynchospora cephalotes · Loosehead beaksedge
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Rhynchospora alba by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts are shared under the same licence.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
