Button grass

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Button grass
Systematics
Monocots
Commelinids
Order : Sweet grass (Poales)
Family : Sourgrass family (Cyperaceae)
Genre : Gymnoschoenus
Type : Button grass
Scientific name
Gymnoschoenus sphaerocephalus
( R.Br. ) Hook.f.

The buttongrass ( Gymnoschoenus sphaerocephalus ) belongs to the family of the sour grass plants (Cyperaceae). It grows in dense clumps up to one meter high and just as wide. It mainly lives in moors , swamps and wet heaths in southeast Australia . It is named for the so-called "buttongrass moorlands" of Tasmania and is one of the most important peat formers.

features

Button grass is a perennial plant . The hemicryptophyte forms dense clumps over a meter high and just as wide. The triangular somewhat compressed stalks grow upright. They are striped but smooth. The gray to yellow-brown leaves reach 50 centimeters in length. They are also striped but shiny. The leaf sheaths are long ciliate on the upper edges.

The flowers are in spikelets which in turn are arranged in spherical heads with a diameter between 1.5 and two centimeters. There are usually three bracts at the base of the head . These are wide and overlap at the bottom. The spikelets are compressed and have a hermaphrodite flower at the top and a male below. The remaining four to six flowers are sterile and remain on the inflorescence after the fruits and upper husks have ripe and fall off . The shiny yellow-brown husks are parchment-like and lined with thin wavy edges. The lower three to four are broadly elliptical in shape and shorter than the narrower upper three to four, which are between five and 5.5 millimeters long. The male flowers carry three anthers . The female flowers are equipped with a three-part stigma . The gray-brown fruits are about 3.0 to 3.5 millimeters long and 1.6 to 1.8 millimeters wide. The shiny, pale red-brown and slightly reticulated wrinkled seeds are not fused with the pericarp.

Hills covered with "Buttongrass moorland" in typical interlocking with eucalyptus forests

Distribution and location

The button grass is only found in the southeast of Australia. Here it occurs in the states of New South Wales , South Australia , Victoria and Tasmania . Sourgrass has its greatest distribution in Tasmania. There it is named for the so-called “Buttongrass moorland”. These sedge beds arise mainly on very acidic, nutrient-poor, waterlogged soils that have emerged from Precambrian sediments in flat valleys and on slopes up to montane layers with layers of peat up to ten centimeters thick and with rainfall over 2,000 millimeters. Such sedge beds built up from button grass cover a total of over 5,000 square kilometers in Tasmania.

Sources and further information

The general information in this article is taken from the sources listed under Literature and Web Links.

literature

  • Magnes, M. 1999 onwards: The types of vegetation in Tasmania. In: Magnes, M. & Mayrhofer, H. (eds.) 1999 onwards: Flora and Vegetation of Tasmania. An introduction to the excursion area of ​​the Institute for Botany at the University of Graz , November 1996. Available online [1]
  • J. Balmer, J. Whinam, J. Kelman, JB Kirkpatrick & E. Lazarus: Floristic Values ​​of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area. Nature Conservation Report 2004/3. Department of Primary Industries Water and Environment, Tasmania, Australia, ISSN  1441-0680 , online PDF

Web links