Ashy Pipewort

Medicinal.

Herbs, annual or short-lived perennial, 15--30 cm. Leaves linear-attenuate, to 10 cm, apex subulate-filiform. Inflorescences: scape sheaths shorter than principal leaves, loose; scapes filiform, 0.5 mm wide, 6--8-ribbed; mature head silvery-gray, ovoid to nearly globose, 4--5 mm wide, soft; receptacle sparsely pilose, hairs translucent; involucral bracts spreading-ascending, not obscured by bracteoles and flowers of mature heads, pale, ovate to oblong, oblanceolate or broadly obovate, grading narrower inward, 2 mm, margins often lacerate or erose, apex acute, glabrous; receptacular bracts pale except for gray midzone, linear-oblong, 2 mm, margins erose or entire, apex acute, glabrous. Staminate flowers: sepals 3, dark, either deeply and narrowly lobed or broadly spatulate, 3-dentate, 1.5 mm, distally with scattered white, linear, short hairs; androphore flaring; petals 3, oblong, apex with white, tapering hairs; stamens 6; anthers yellow. Pistillate flowers: sepals 3, 2 linear-elliptic, 1 broadly elliptic-oblanceolate, concave, 1.5 mm, apex acute, sometimes with few translucent hairs; gynophore 1 mm with 3 spreading, peglike, minute appendages; pistil 3-carpellate. Seeds pale brown, ovoid or broadly ellipsoid, 4.5 mm, finely reticulate, alveolae horizontally rectangular.

Leaves narrowly linear, 2--5(--8) cm, 0.8--1(--1.7) mm wide at middle, glabrous, veins 3(--5). Scapes 6--30, 6--9(--19) cm, 4--6-ribbed; sheath 1.5--2(--3.5) cm; receptacle villous, occasionally glabrous; heads light yellow to dark green, subglobose to broadly ovoid, ca. 4 × 3--3.5 mm; involucral bracts pale green-yellow to blackish, obovate to elliptic, 0.9--1.9 × 1--1.4 mm, membranous, glabrous; floral bracts oblong to oblanceolate, glabrous or occasionally abaxially villous. Male flowers: sepals spathelike, 1.3--1.9 mm, glabrous or abaxially hairy toward 3-cleft apex; petals 3, ovate to oblong, anterior one slightly larger than others, shortly hairy at apex, gland black or brown; anthers white to dusky. Female flowers: sepals 2 or 3, blackish, free, linear, sparsely villous abaxially and at margin, posterior one absent or to 1 mm, lateral ones 1--1.7 mm; petals absent; ovary 3-loculed; style 3-cleft. Seeds ovoid, 0.4--0.5 mm; testa hexagonally reticulate, prickles absent. Fl. and fr. Jun--Oct.

Himalaya (Kashmir to Assam), Burma, India, Ceylon,China, Japan, Philippines, Australia.

introduced; Calif., La.; Europe (Italy); S.E., e Asia; Australia.

Anhui, Fujian, Gansu, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Henan, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Shaanxi, Sichuan, Taiwan, Yunnan, Zhejiang [Afghanistan, Bhutan, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Laos, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam; Africa, Australia].

1800-2300 m

Flowering summer--fall.

Muck of rice fields; 0--200m.

Rice fields, valleys, damp soil; near sea level to 1200 m.

Eriocaulon sieboldianum Siebold & Zuccarini ex Steudel

Eriocaulon cinereum var. sieboldianum (Siebold & Zuccarini ex Steudel) T. Koyama; E. formosanum Hayata; E. heteranthum Bentham; E. sieboldianum Siebold & Zuccarini ex Steudel.

cinereum: ash-grey