Carex barrattii Torr. ex Schwein.

Loosely tufted on long rhizomes, 3–8 dm; main lvs 2–4 mm wide; terminal spike staminate, 3–5 cm, long-peduncled, often with a smaller one at its base; pistillate spikes 2–5, crowded to well separated, linear-cylindric, 2–4 cm, spreading or drooping, staminate at the top, the lowest with peduncles somewhat shorter than the spike, the upper with shorter peduncles or subsessile; lowest bract foliaceous to setaceous, 2–5(–10) cm; upper bracts scale-like; pistillate scales ovate, about as long as but usually narrower than the perigynia, dark brown-purple, with slender, concolorous midvein; perigynia stramineous, or darker at the summit, ovoid, 2.4–3.7 mm, obscurely trigonous, 2-ribbed and obscurely few-nerved, glabrous, very minutely beaked; achene concavely trigonous, straight-apiculate. Wet ground, especially in pine-barren swamps near the coast; Conn. to N.C.