Carex emoryi Dewey ex Torr.

Rhizomatous, with both short and long rhizomes, the slender stems arising laterally, scabrous on the angles, 4–12 dm; lowest lvs reduced to reddish-brown, bladeless sheaths; main lvs 3.5–6(–8) mm wide, the sheaths glabrous, reddish dorsally, with a tawny, generally convex mouth; lowest bract lf-like, about equaling the infl, the others reduced; staminate spikes (1)2(3), 1.5–5 cm; pistillate spikes 3–5, short-pedunculate or sessile, erect, 2–10 cm, slender, tapering at the base, the uppermost with some distal staminate fls; pistillate scales with a broad green or tawny midstrip and a submarginal tawny to reddish-brown band, generally narrower and shorter than the perigynia; perigynia 1.7–3.2 mm, green becoming stramineous, not dotted, flattened and planoconvex, usually several-nerved on each side, short-beaked; achene lenticular, closely enveloped by the perigynium; 2n=72. Streambanks and roadside ditches; s. N.Y. to N.D. and Man., s. to Va., n. Ark., and Tex. (C. stricta var. e.)