Eleocharis

Eleocharis is a virtually cosmopolitan genus of 250 or more species of flowering plants in the sedge family, Cyperaceae. The name is derived from the Greek words ἕλειος (heleios), meaning "marsh dweller," and χάρις (charis), meaning "grace." Members of the genus are known commonly as spikerushes or spikesedges. The genus has a geographically cosmopolitan distribution, with centers of diversity in the Amazon rainforest and adjacent eastern slopes of the South American Andes, northern Australia, eastern North America, California, Southern Africa, and subtropical Asia. The vast majority of Eleocharis species grow in aquatic or mesic habitats from sea level to higher than 5,000 meters in elevation.

Eleocharis

Forest & Kim Starr · CC BY 3.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Sits inside
CyperaceaePBDB
Diet
"photoautotroph"PBDB, for Angiospermae

Time the record covers

At least 2.4 million years on record.

The record covers at least 2.58 Mya to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 3.6 Mya to 0 Mya.

Pliocene — about 5 of 30 occurrencesPliocenePleistocene — about 24 of 30 occurrencesPleistoceneHolocene — about 1 of 30 occurrences3.7–3.6 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences3.6–3.4 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences3.4–3.3 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences3.3–3.1 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences3.1–3.0 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences3.0–2.9 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences2.9–2.7 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences2.7–2.6 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences2.6–2.5 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences2.5–2.3 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences2.3–2.2 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences2.2–2.0 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences2.0–1.9 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences1.9–1.8 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences1.8–1.6 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences1.6–1.5 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences1.5–1.4 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences1.4–1.2 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences1.2–1.1 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences1.1–957 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences957 ka–820 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences820 ka–683 ka Mya — about 0.4 occurrences683 ka–547 ka Mya — about 0.5 occurrences547 ka–410 ka Mya — about 0.5 occurrences410 ka–273 ka Mya — about 0.5 occurrences273 ka–137 ka Mya — about 0.5 occurrences137 ka–0 Mya — about 17 occurrences2.58 Mya129 ka4.1 Mya0 Mya

30 occurrences of Eleocharis on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

30 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

1 formation

Norwich Crag — 52.31°N, 1.40°E

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The named rock units Eleocharis has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 29 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Eleocharis and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Eleocharis and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

592 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 22 sites for Eleocharis, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

8 references

Each of the 30 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Eleocharis

Credit
Forest & Kim Starr
Licence
CC BY 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Eleocharis was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itCyperaceae through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Brown 1810