- Scientific Name: Rhynchospora colorata (L.) H.Pfeiff.
- Ref: Repert. Spec. Nov. Regni Veg. 38:89. 1935
- Synonyms: Cyperus kyllingia Endl.; Dichromena colorata (L.) C.L.Hitchc.; D. drummondiana Steud.; D. leucocephala Michx.; D. persooniana Nees; Kyllinga colorata (L.) Druce; K. monocephala Rottb.; Rhynchospora leucocephala (Michx.) Boeckeler; R. persooniana Griseb.; R. stellata (Lam.) Griseb.; R. stellata f. intercedens Kük.; Schoenus coloratus L.; S. stellatus Lam.
- English Common Name: white star sedge, white-topped sedge, starrush whitetop
- Chinese Common Name: 星光草 xīngguāng∙cǎo
- Family: Cyperaceae
- Genus: Rhynchospora
- Distribution: Sands, peats, and silt of interdunal swales, shores, meadowy swales, and marsh edges, sometimes fens, usually on circumneutral or basic substrates; 0–300 m; S. USA; Mexico; West Indies; Central America; South America
- Photo: 06/21/2009, South China Botanical Garden, Guangdong
Plants perennial, cespitose or solitary, to 70 cm; rhizomes slender, scaly, to 2 mm thick. Culms erect, slender, leafy-based, trigonous, several-ribbed. Leaves spreading to erect, overtopped by culm; blades narrowly linear, proximally flattened, 0.5–3 mm wide, apex tapering, trigonous. Inflorescences terminal, solitary, headlike, dense, white, leafy-involucrate; involucral bracts several, flaring to recurved, white from broadened base nearly to median, then green to tapered tip, longer bracts 13 cm × 2–7 mm. Spikelets white, ovoid, 5–7 mm, apex acute; fertile scales many, boat shaped, sharply curved keeled, 3–4(–5) mm, apex acute or blunt. Flowers: perianth absent. Fruits several per spikelet, 1.5–1.7(–2) mm; body yellow to mahogany, broadly pyriform obovoid, tumidly lenticular, 1 × 0.5–0.7 mm, widest at apex, margins thickened, interrupted at base of tubercle; surfaces transversely undulate rugose, ridges contiguous, of short linear papillae; tubercle broadly triangular, 0.5–0.6 mm, gray crustaceous, apex short acuminate. 2n = 12. (FNA Vol. 23)