Carex nigra (L.) Reichard

Loosely tufted, with both long and short rhizomes, the stems 1–8 dm, surpassing the lvs; main lvs lacking palisade-tissue, 2–3 mm wide, V-shaped in x-section, with stomates and papillae only on the upper side; staminate spikes peduncled, 1–3 dm, often with 1 or 2 smaller ones at its base; pistillate spikes 2–5, contiguous or separate, cylindric, 1–4 cm × 5 mm, often acute, erect, sessile or the lowest short-pedunculate, commonly with a few terminal staminate fls; bracts sheathless or with a very short purple-brown sheath, the lowest lf-like but shorter than or barely equaling the infl, the upper much reduced; pistillate scales ovate or oblong, usually slightly narrower and considerably shorter than the perigynia, with dark brown or atropurpureous sides and very narrow pale midvein scarcely reaching the obtuse tip; perigynia thin, planoconvex, ovate to obovate, 2.0–3.7 mm, half to three-fifths as wide, rounded to obtuse at the tip, finely few-nerved (as well as 2-ribbed), minutely beaked, green, becoming tawny, distally dark-blotched, papillate throughout; achene lenticular, loosely enveloped in the lower half of the perigynium; 2n=ca 84. Wet meadows and salt-marshes, mostly near the coast; Lab. to Conn. and Vt.; disjunct in n. Mich.; widespread in Europe. (C. acuta, misapplied)